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Americans, Their Smiley-Face Facade, and Reality
Whenever I think of the smiley-face icon, I think of Wal-Mart because of its once-ubiquitous ad campaign. And when I think of Wal-Mart, I think of crappy wages and insecure employees who probably live paycheck to paycheck. That metaphor -- the happy face fronting a world of worry -- is the subject of a new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America , by social commentator Barbara Ehrenreich.
Ehrenreich's bout with breast cancer and the cloying "pink ribbon culture" that surrounds this dreaded disease (she was urged to see her cancer as a "gift") made her explore our cultural obsession with being happy. The book's point is that realism is being elbowed out of the way by all the life coaches, self-help books and prosperity gospel preachers like Joel Osteen who tell us that a positive outlook will lead to success, riches and the fulfillment of all of life's desires. These heaping helpings of sunny optimism are subtly diverting us from grappling with serious social and economic issues in ways that can truly bring about change.
The Secret became a runaway best-seller by telling readers that they could have anything they wanted just by imagining it. The book was obviously unadulterated bunk, but it sold madly as people grasped at any chance to better their lives.
One has to wonder if such magical thinking would have been so popular if people felt they had temporal power to change the conditions of their work and prospects.
The reason that so many Americans have jobs that don't pay enough is not that they didn't channel enough positive energy into getting a better salary, but that wages have been stagnant for 30 years. And the reason that wages have barely budged is that America's wealthiest households just kept slicing themselves a larger piece of the income pie.
Between 1979 and 2007, the top 1 percent of American households saw their share of all pretax income nearly double, while the bottom 80 percent had their share fall by 7 percent. Ehrenreich quotes The New York Times , saying, "It's as if every household in the bottom 80 percent is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1 percent."
Every working stiff in the bottom 80 percent should be outraged and politically motivated to force change. But if everyone is convinced of the convenient nostrum that our own attitude controls how much we are paid, then workers won't band together to demand a larger share of our national prosperity.
This positive-thinking message is a kind of opiate that has been particularly effective on the white-collar corporate workforce. Ehrenreich documents how corporations hire motivational speakers to convince laid-off workers that their job loss is "an opportunity for self-transformation." Somehow, she says, white-collar workers have accepted positive thinking as a "belief system" that says a person can be "infinitely powerful, if only they could master their own minds."
On the surface, prosperity gospels and positive-thinking companies appear harmless with their treacly "Successories products" of posters and coffee mugs, but they have subversively helped make each of us an island. They have convinced Americans that each individual has control and power over the conditions of their life, when that is largely not the case. Access to decent health care at a reasonable price is not a matter of individual effort. Neither is securing decent wages, pensions, safe working conditions or job security. Workers demanded those rights through collective action in the 20th century, and we are losing them now by taking an "every man for himself" approach to work.
The ultimate irony is that even with the booming positive-thinking industry, Americans are not among the happiest people.
International surveys put us behind places such as Denmark and Switzerland, where the social safety net is stronger.
It seems that happy thoughts don't alter the reality of American life, with all its attendant risks to middle-class living standards. Behind the smiley-face facade, we are privately worried, and we have reason to be.
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130 Comments so far
Show AllWhy is it, Mz. Blumner, that you and most other writers in the political writing arena are all great diagnosticians but no practitioners seem to appear in print handing out prescriptions on HOW TO FIX the illness? THAT is what we need.
Hell, we all can see the symptoms of the "diseases" around us. What we need is direction in how to work on a cure...or at least a referral to a surgeon.
I don't think it's true that we all can see the symptoms of the diseases around us. The myth of complete self-determination that Ms. Blumner writes about has a strong hold on many Americans.
The "every man for himself" attitude lies at the core of American culture, and it has done great damage to our society.
Touché!
Americans need to quit using euphemisms for evil and start calling evil what it is.
To avoid confrontation, maintain political correctness, build consensus and play the corporate game, evil acts by people, corporations and government are dismissed by Americans as "downsizing", "insanity", "craziness", "incompetence" and other euphemisms that put a positive spin on evil actions.
Part of reason is that many believe that there is no such thing as 'evil,' yet the evidence is moribund. Add to that the fact that evil often succeeds as disguising itself as good, and you get millions who fall in line with its marching call. One thing we cannot alter, though, are the consequences we beget. Many of us feel its encroachment upon us, like and invisible miasma that colors our mood, and creates a vague discomfort within. Even those who most vehemently deny the existence of evil feel it. We must bring to consciousness, then, what we intuitively know. There IS such a thing as natural and unnatural, kindness and meanness, beneficial and harmful, conscious and unconsciousness. Instinctively and intuitively we know which is which, but we are taught to disregard those perceptions in favor of what is socially accepted. It's past time we began to wake up. A new kind of awareness is needed.
Sioux Rose
CHESS: I agree with your diagnosis, however it is not so much a "new kind of awareness" that is required, as much as it is RECOVERING--the psychic equivalent of archaeology--what's been buried! We all have an "inner shaman," a being that is incomprehensibly connected to all that is. This aspect of sentience has been purposedly turned off, defined as superstition, punished out of children who are open to it, demeaned at school, marginalized in the workplace... it is linked to the indigenous chords, soul memory, earlier existences. This experience IN connection, of course, makes the rabid rape and resource depletion of the natural world something no one would countenance. Much better then, like Prosac, to merely turn off the mechanism that can read what's wrong! Jane Roberts spoke about this order of cognizance in her books, "Seth Speaks," and "The Seth Material," among others.
"Kucinich2012"
My people have a 'proverb': "If you know what NOT to do you've got half of the answer to the problem".
So far in the USA for the past thirty years since the 'Reagan era'--the conservatives of both parties have had control, and they have made the mess they are wallowing in this very moment----and drag everyone else along with them.
"Conservatism is a deadly flawed doctrine; since to 'conserve' means to maintain the status quo, no matter how often you are required to repeat the same mistakes to maintain it."
I would think that people would realize that if nothing else, they should try something else; if for no other reason than a 'refreshing change' from the 'failed past'.
The USA may not have much time left to make those changes that already look so far 'out of reach' to be available in time.
If that is the case the USA will still have played a very important role; they would be a horribly negative example for the future to learn from.
Sioux Rose
NATIVE SON: Interesting post. I've given the topic some thought, and here's what coalesced in my mind. The patriarchal basis for Western religion, and the codes of law that emerged from this mindset, tend to glorify the father. Many men want to honor their fathers by being like them. To do OTHER is in a sense, a dishonor. Tradition is all about the tendency to validate one's ancestors by repeating what they did, customs, rituals, beliefs and all. This pattern can, of course, retard progress.
The child who is by nature a radical, one born to question the rules, is too often punished in any family but those that are incredibly progressive or lenient to begin with. The school system is inordinately punitive towards those children who step out of line, speak out of turn, or provide answers to tests that deviate from the norms.
America, established as a living entity on July 4, is under the influence of the Zodiac sign of Cancer. This sign-realm is the one most directed at family activities AND the past. Cancer tends to live IN the past, and this may account for all the romanticism about America's prior days of glory, while it also explains the conservative bent of American politics. Whereas we may not have ruling dynastic families as overt as the royal ones of Europe, it's clear that a few powerful ($) families in this hardly-liberated land indeed operate as royal dynasties.
James Carroll, columnist for The Boston Globe, wrote a very poetic piece several years ago about the significance of July 4, as the nation's birthday. He spoke about the tension between the nation's deeds, its entrenchment in the past, and its striving for ideals. Every entity is more than its sun sign, and the case with the U.S. is that its moon sign is Aquarius, a very novel, inventive, and trend-setting sign. Although Mr. Carroll probably has no interest or cognizance of astrology, he defined quite aptly the relationship between sun Cancer and Moon Aquarius in his observation on the space between what America was and is, and what it strives to become... at least as an ideal.
I asked a medium (spiritual) the other day about leaving the U.S. as opposed to staying, given the karma that's been created by misleaders' abuse of power. She told me this IS the place to stay as the changes will occur here given that so many are now utterly disapppointed, worn down, dejected, disappointed, betrayed, etc. I HOPE she's right. The nation's Aquarian moon holds promise for what the rest of the world has already begun to work towards attaining... "Another World Is Possible."
I admire many attributes of Indigenous cultural models and thank you for bringing your time, patience, and wisdom to this forum.
"Hey Cuz"
Thanks for your sweet words and your wisdom.
Sioux Rose
NATIVE: You are most welcome. It's been a strange time for so many of us, and still is!
Conservatism seems to be akin to maintenance of privilege and all that goes along with it. Exploitation, resistance to change and improvement, etc. Unbridled liberalism is not the answer either, where any sort of social 'pollution' is acceptable. An 'anything goes' society can be just as deleterious. Without a deep awareness and understanding of the human reality in which we live, any reform--either from the left or right--is doomed to fail. To me, this seems to be the elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge; they want to promote whatever agenda, regardless of how trivial or harmful, that they find themselves identified with. Selfishness is what really rules, however it is cloaked.
There is a solution out there. Democrats and Republicans for common sense and the Millenium Mandate. A series of initiatives that directly and effectively address the current conditions that are killing our country and planet. Just a few of the solutions:
World Water Preservation Pact
Export Freedom Initiatives
Revenue Tap Act
Seperation of Lobbiest and State
to name a few....
You want a thrid party to turn things around, this is it! America is sick, this is a way to cure her and help the rest of the world. Just yelling back and forth from the left to the right is nothing more than watching caged monkeys yell at each other about who is to blame for the lion in the compound eating their children while simutaneously doing NOTHING at all to stop it. If you are unemployed look into getting a job with the common sense party find out how.
commonsensenow.org
Hello Kucinich2012,
HOW TO FIX the illness? Or "What is to be done?" The only question, and the answer is simple: SOLIDARITY, COMMUNITY and ORGANIZING SKILLS.
No matter what our goal: peace, economic justice, real democracy, health care - we won't get it unless we learn to WORK TOGETHER. No more circular firing squads.
I don't know any health insurance executives or bank presidents or Pentagon generals; they don't live in my neighborhood. But I do know lots of people who get sick without insurance, some of whom have died, and people who are homeless or unemployed because the oligarchs have taken all the money.
Can we all talk and plan and act together? Our first step is to admit that we aren't very good at it, our culture and education haven't prepared us for community. We chant, "The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated." True enough. But first we have to learn how to get united and stay united. Can we respect each other; can we appreciate and listen to each other? That's our own version of "positive psychology" - the movement version; and we have to learn it.
Once again I appeal to Common Dreams to add an ongoing "ORGANIZERS PAGE" so we can teach and learn from each other. Write to me if you agree, Laurenceofberk@aol.com so we can appeal to Common Dreams together.
Hear, hear Laurenceofberk.
Listen up folks. This fellow is talking cure and we should all lend him our ears.
We must get together and talk cure, and we desperately need a site where we can do that.
How about it CD? Not that you owe us anything, but it certainly would be nice.
Thank you port_lookout,
Here's the plan. I will write an appeal for an Organizing or Solutions Page to the editors of Common Dreams, and then I will copy it and post it on various blogs here (early in the day), so that people can support it.
The CD people are intelligent and well meaning. I expect they will quickly understand that an Organizing for Solutions(?) page will enhance the number and the commitment of their readership.
PS Nothing wrong with positive psychology, if it's used as an aide to action instead of as a substitute for it.
The simple fact is there is NO perscription to fix the illness... AND, even if there was NO ONE would follow it! We are a country of media conformists, despite all the "ruggid individualism" rhetoric. We like being told what to do and what to think - hence FOX NOISE !
Are you a Tea Bagger??? ... a Birther??? ...an anti-Socialist Obamer???
Fact is MOST Murkins LIKE being told what to think.
If you are an independent thinker - then you are in fact, quite the outlier in USA demographics.
The country will continue it's slow deadly spiral down the Fascist wormhole, simply because we are encouraged to do so. If you think your Liberal Arts educated neighbor will suddenly have an epiphany and realise that Obama is nothing more than a smooth talking New World Order Shill - THINK AGAIN!
It is TOO uncomfortable for most educated Murkin Shmucks to admit that they have been wrong on most all positions in life - so they will continue with "Magical Thinking"... because it is just so easy and comfortable to live in an illusionary world, rather than the real one... Spectacle rules all consciousness.
If you have the resources to exit the land of Murkins, it would be wise to do so... when the illusionary bubble finally bursts you will surely be at a disadvantage without many guns and endless ammunition.
Hi Monk,
Please allow me to lay a piece of psychology on you. Reported in the Tuesday New York Time Science Section a few weeks ago.
It turns out that the more trauma and anxiety people experience, the more they cling to tradition and conformity. You can test it out on an immediately experimental basis. Give people a puzzle they can't solve and they will talk more of religion and patriotism.
Ruling classes have known this since before the time of Machiavelli (the 1520's). Make people afraid and insecure and they will conform. And please, don't give them health care or an adequate pension. That would make us too secure. It also helps to convince large numbers of people that they have broken the law. (That comes directly from Machiavelli) Hence the drug laws.
So what to do? First of all, don't blame the victims. And don't insult them. Suffering is what limits our vision, even though it may not be immediately visible. And help people to experience secure families, which most of us have not. (The states with the highest divorce rates, and economic insecurity, have the most fundamentalist religion.) Most of us already know that we live in an oppressive, undemocratic society. But we have suppressed that knowledge because it is too dangerous to deal with alone, by ourselves. Can WE provide an environment which is as secure as a Baptist church? Until we can we have no right to snipe, and WHEN we can, we have no need to. The word "conspiracy" means "breathing together." Let's do it.
Interesting
Ralph Nader wrote a prescription here on CD recently, but so far it hasn't been filled.
Working on a cure requires time and effort and is much more arduous than diagnostics, so fewer people are interested in discussing cure.
The longer the disease goes untreated the weaker the patient becomes, until a point is reached where cure is impossible.
So if we don't at some time soon, before that point is reached, congregate to discuss a cure, we are surely doomed.
"Plenty of people are on to the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness."
I ask myself, why do Americans mistreat themselves so. The only answer I've come up with is history. A history of slavery. A history of institutionalized marginalization, denigration and making people subservient to others.
European traditions of royalty don't have the same modern sting as current American culture. Neither do sectarian conflicts that tend to dissipate.
Kucinich2012
T.R. Reid has certainly taken a step in that direction with his extremely important and most relevant book The Healing of America: A Global Quest For Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. He visits about a dozen countries, ostensibly to see if anyone can fix his ailing sore shoulder, but then uses that as an excuse to see how and why the health care systems of other nations are so much more successful at usually half the cost as that of the United States. A must read book for every individual in this country who considers him or herself a thinking, intelligent and rational person.
"It's as if every household in the bottom 80% is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1%."
For the 1% on the receiving end of this national wealth and income redistribution dynamic, there's very good reason to have a smiley face. Adding further insult to injury, the Masters of the Universe continue to spin the popular yarn that the invisible hand of the marketplace is simply rewarding those individuals and corporations whose superior entrepreneurship is the real engine driving the US national economy.
"It's every man for himself!" the elephant shouted, dancing among the chickens.
Bill from Saginaw
"It's every man for himself!" the elephant shouted, dancing among the chickens."
Wow! What a great visual image.
Reminds me of the slogan of the American ruling class.
"I upped my income, up yours."
RE: "It's every man for himself!" the elephant shouted, dancing among the chickens."
Yes, I agree that it is a great visual image except that it is rather dated and better mirrors a time when there was more semblance of equality in society. Elephants and donkeys dancing among the ants would be a more contemporary image. You can imagine the democratic debates among that group with the elephants and donkeys trumpeting and braying and unable and uninterested in hearing the thoughts and concerns and votes of the ants. "Every man for himself!" "Every man for himself!" Back when the visual image included chickens we could be heard a bit now and then and heard different thoughts but now it seems all they notice are the golden nuggets that we little ants dig up for them out of the desert sand. With time this visual image too will become dated.
The "American Dream" is the ultimate opiate. Americans are taught from childhood that they too can be bazillionairs and rise up to the top of the heap. Fed on success stories.... and there are many. It is a lottery mentality. Can't overtax the wealthy.... after all, you too will be among the wealthy someday.
So totally true!
If you think you are marginalized, you are. Even a blind man can see that in the last twenty years. Note, that the median wage has not changed in 30 years. Where does that leave you?
If you want a change, I recommend Paulo Friere's pedagogy of the Oppressed. A book that clearly points to how many of us ended up with the populist mind set that smashes our humanity day by day and year by year. Together we can turn this thing around, not as an island but as part of a solidarity that can rock the world. We as a people are the answer. If you can't describe reality without being labeled, the problem is with those who love control. Stand up an speak truth to power and know your life is worth more than the crumbs from the table of the elites. The hardest part is admitting that you are oppressed by a system that has giving you a false idenity and only wants to drop you lower than you are.
Hello Davejiowa,
Thank you for your reference to the Friere method. My recollection of it (decades since I read the book) is that you teach people, adults and children, to read, by asking them to tell and eventually write down their life stories or what is most important to them. And then you share those stories among the class, either by speech or reading. Pretty soon the individual stories add up to a composite picture of the social life of the surrounding community. It is a powerful method which provides strong motivation to learn to read AND, in time, to engage in group social action. ("Pedagogy of the Oppressed," from Brazil, by the way, is similar in methodology to Sylvia Ashton-Warner's book "Teacher," based on her teaching among the Maori in New Zealand.)
Friere's techniques and philosophy are still the basis of many schools and some school systems throughout Latin America.
The lesson here for American progressives is this: by listening carefully to a person's life, you empower them and you empower the group for united action. One American organization which does just that is the PICO network, originally the "Pacific Institute for Community Organizations," but now in 18 states and 150 cities. They are an interfaith community organizing network. PICO trains its activists to conduct "One on One" interviews with people whom they want to join the team.
( www.piconetwork.org or http://pluralism.org/reports/view/71 )
It is amazing how much experience and literature there is about communication and organizing. For example, "The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems" is an anthology of 61 different methods of group communication. It's time for us to study and to practice. Ranting won't cut it anymore. There is too much at stake.
The New York Times
October 20, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Safety Nets for the Rich
By BOB HERBERT
The headlines that ran side by side on the front page of Saturday’s New York Times summed up, inadvertently, the terrible fix that we’ve allowed our country to fall into.
The lead headline, in the upper right-hand corner, said: “U.S. Deficit Rises to $1.4 Trillion; Biggest Since ’45.”
The headline next to it said: “Bailout Helps Revive Banks, And Bonuses.”
We’ve spent the last few decades shoveling money at the rich like there was no tomorrow. We abandoned the poor, put an economic stranglehold on the middle class and all but bankrupted the federal government — while giving the banks and megacorporations and the rest of the swells at the top of the economic pyramid just about everything they’ve wanted.
And we still don’t seem to have learned the proper lessons. We’ve allowed so many people to fall into the terrible abyss of unemployment that no one — not the Obama administration, not the labor unions and most certainly no one in the Republican Party — has a clue about how to put them back to work.
Meanwhile, Wall Street is living it up. I’m amazed at how passive the population has remained in the face of this sustained outrage.
Even as tens of millions of working Americans are struggling to hang onto their jobs and keep a roof over their families’ heads, the wise guys of Wall Street are licking their fat-cat chops over yet another round of obscene multibillion-dollar bonuses — this time thanks to the bailout billions that were sent their way by Uncle Sam, with very little in the way of strings attached.
Nevermind that the economy remains deeply troubled. As The Times pointed out on Saturday, much of Wall Street “is minting money.”
Call it déjà voodoo. I wrote a column that ran three days before Christmas in 2007 that focused on the deeply disturbing disconnect between Wall Streeters harvesting a record crop of bonuses — billions on top of billions — while working families were having a very hard time making ends meet.
We would later learn that December 2007 was the very month that the Great Recession began. I wrote in that column: “Even as the Wall Streeters are high-fiving and ordering up record shipments of Champagne and caviar, the American dream is on life support.”
So we had an orgy of bonuses just as the recession was taking hold and now another orgy (with taxpayers as the enablers) that is nothing short of an arrogantly pointed finger in the eye of everyone who suffered, and continues to suffer, in this downturn.
Whether P.T. Barnum actually said it or not, there is a sucker born every minute. American taxpayers might want to take a look in the mirror. If the epithet fits...
We need to make some fundamental changes in the way we do things in this country. The gamblers and con artists of the financial sector, the very same clowns who did so much to bring the economy down in the first place, are howling self-righteously over the prospect of regulations aimed at curbing the worst aspects of their excessively risky behavior and preventing them from causing yet another economic meltdown.
We should be going even further. We’ve institutionalized the idea that there are firms that are too big to fail and, therefore, “we, the people” are obliged to see that they don’t — even if that means bankrupting the national treasury and undermining the living standards of ordinary people. What sense does that make?
If some company is too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist. Break it up.
Why should the general public have to constantly worry that a misstep by the high-wire artists at Goldman Sachs (to take the most obvious example) would put the entire economy in peril? These financial acrobats get the extraordinary benefits of their outlandish risk-taking — multimillion-dollar paychecks, homes the size of castles — but the public has to be there to absorb the worst of the pain when they take a terrible fall.
Enough! Goldman Sachs is thriving while the combined rates of unemployment and underemployment are creeping toward a mind-boggling 20 percent. Two-thirds of all the income gains from the years 2002 to 2007 — two-thirds! — went to the top 1 percent of Americans.
We cannot continue transferring the nation’s wealth to those at the apex of the economic pyramid — which is what we have been doing for the past three decades or so — while hoping that someday, maybe, the benefits of that transfer will trickle down in the form of steady employment and improved living standards for the many millions of families struggling to make it from day to day.
That money is never going to trickle down. It’s a fairy tale. We’re crazy to continue believing it.
Sioux Rose
TEDDY: I don't know if you were familiar with an obnoxious American comedian named Alan King, but he had a routine which was a spoof on "this THEY thing." He'd ask, "Who are they"? I relate this as while there are many good points revealed in the quotes in your post, the use of the word WE presumes a consensus where none exists.
I had this thought the other night about Reverend Sun-Moon and his "UNIFICATION" Church. (This "leader" is friendly with the BUsh family as you probably know.) The presumption generated by this idea of "unification" is that many diverse perspectives come together in UNITY. Of course Reverend S-M is a very strict authoritarian who subsumes all independent voices into his own, and then makes it very clear (down to who is allowed to marry whom) what his "followers" may or may not do. Therefore he may use the term "WE" but it's just propagating the "I" premise and directing it at thousands.
In America where both parties have been subsumed into one representative voice in favor of corporate profits chiefly, what does WE have to do with it? Where is the WE in our representation that would make us responsible for the policies of wonton destruction and/or class warfare?
WE is as much an illusion as is the HAPPINESS mandate that corporations are making use of to convince disgruntled employees that the only thing missing is the proverbial inside job. We live in a consumer climate of so many manufactured convenient fictions. Truth is becoming conspicuous BY its absence from all meaningful discourse.
SiouxRose -- the way you expounded on the concept -so critical to nations - of "WE" is beyond praise because it brings to our attention the necessity of questioning things that are taken as a matter of course while people actually have not clarified for themselves what that means, and YET , as you pointed out - is as much a product of projecting outwards what one's inner desires really are...and unfortunately - it is one of selfishness and greed, justified by being "included" in "WE".
as if it is a way to hide one's greed by being part of a "whole"...and in this way - makes the WHOLE what it might not REALLY be - something that is NOT of greed, nor OF selfishness
BUT of kindness and generosity.
and you are right - in fact - i think you put your finger on how the personal, selfish desires of ruthless and endlessly grasping people manages to USURP "WE" (not necessarily as nation only , but the concept) - to become the operating principle of "WE".
it's like a greedy person has succeeded to convince everyone that HIS interests are "everyone's interests" "OUR interests"
"WE" have the "same interests".
while playing upon them his dastardly game of greed.
it's exactly what explains "trickle down economics"...
"WE have to support the troops"
"WE have to fight them over there ..."
"WE are free"
"WE are the greatest"...
"WE are in this together"
"WE are a team"
"WE are americans".
even if the WE has been used as a way to put a blanket over everyone's eyes - because what "WE" really means is
"ME" 'I" - said by the ruthless and cruel .
whose only interest is to render towards the people GREED- his or her greed so that people will accept it as "OUR culture".
until the only thing that remains is THE CULTURE - the "WE" is one of GREED - and it reflects the desires of just a few "I"s. in reality.
the great CON JOB, in other words.
when one thinks about it - there is NO american culture - it is merely a mishmash of different people coming from different places ...
but ALL are subsumed to ONE overriding principle and interest that of the "I"..which is dictated by the powerful for their interests while FOOLING everyone else into thinking
"WE" have an american "culture".
as someone said and i am sure others have:
"the greatest con game in america has been to make the people BELIEVE that THEIR interest is the SAME as that of the rich and powerful".
and so americans say "WE".
you know what you just reminded me about SiouxRose?
this "WE" ?
it's just like Queen Victoria of England - who was famous for never using the "singular personal" pronoun.
always she said "WE"
"we are not amused"
as if SHE represented EVERYTHING the english and british were.
but it was really a way , a "royal" way , of hiding the truth that SHE really was interested only in the maintainance of the power of her family and their upper classes over the rest.
what BETTER way than to intone the "collective" under "WE"?
WE, as in 'United WE stand' never quite made sense to me. It is a pronoun that is designed to shame those who dissent from the popular view. Progressives should stop using the word--at least if it is used as a way of insuring conformity. The only WE I can accept is the one that refers to those who now and in our history spoke out and acted on behalf of the powerless: Jane Addams, Emma Goldman, Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, Eleanor Roosevelt, Noam Chomsky, and unaccountable others. Don't count me as part of your WE when you talk about Woodrow Wilson and the rest of our weak-minded presidents, religious leaders, and generals.
Sioux Rose
DROSERA: Good points and examples!
beautifully said, Drosera!
My license plate holder says "freedom thrives in a we society" and will stay.How in hell can anyone equate we with I or me in any context?the only examples used are ones used by politicians and royalty when they want to screw everyone else and as a thinking person I know the difference in what they are saying and what they mean and if being called a progressive means throwing words on the trash heap because some asshole uses it in a derogitory way then progressive is no different than those folks who want to change the words in the bible.Tony
Sioux Rose
TEDDY: If I were a decent musician, I think you and I could do some cool improvisation! You took my point and REALLY extrapolated beyond it, and did it with extra wisdom. Good on you!
What was one of the worst punishments of years past? Being placed into exile. Today it could be seen in the prison sentence of "solitary confinement," or the awful fate of those "presumed-guilty" souls caught in the GWTO drift nets and now placed in tiny prison cells like scenes straight out of Kafka's "The Trial."
Not many persons have the inner strength to walk away from the crowd and march to their own drummers. This fate often requires that one march alone until others recognize the value of their journey. Social ostracism is a huge tool when it comes to conforming "the masses" to the pre-existing norms of any given culture, regardless of their fitness or moral distance from any modicum of justice.
When women were burned as witches, crowds gathered to watch. Most were grateful not to be among those that for mere finger-pointing warranted a painful death sentence. In the deep South, families would do horrific things to Black "slaves" after their church services. What passes for lawful is so often obscene. Today, it's seeing too many in our nation go along with wars based upon contrived "evidence." Each generation presumes that what took place in history was something that belongs to the past, as if the lessons that ought be garnered are not signs to watch for, to be on guard against ever after. Our nation's founders certainly understood the weaknesses of human nature, the dark prospect of absolute power corrupting absolutely. Based on their experiences with royalty in Europe, they came up with what was then the most radical government design conceived of since the birth of Christendom.
"One is the lonelinest" number, but WE is a dangerous premise indeed, particularly when it's used by handlers who have studied human psychology--Bernays and Orwell and BF Skinner--and KNOW how to forge consensus where none ought to exist.
Sioux Rose, teddy, and others, what a great discussion! Thanks to all. About the WE mentality, in the first months of the Iraq invasion I used to bring an American flag as we stood on the bridges in Maine to protest the war with the message, "It's my country too!", and I am NOT supporting this war! But as the months and years went on I quit bringing the flag. I was no longer able to even consider myself as a person that would wave a banner that represented the USA.
I've always rather disliked the flag, wouldn't dream of hanging one on my home, but on the 4th of July, it was different. I love a parade, I love the marching bands, the floats, and on that day I even loved my flag. OUR flag. But I'll never wave a flag again, and it does make me quite sad to know that. I quit standing when the National Anthem was played many years ago which has always raised a few eyebrows, I am sure. But now, no more flags either--even on the 4th of July.
I feel the same way about the flag....and the national anthem never felt quite right even as a kid....I much prefer Rene Marie's "Lift Every Voice and Sing" rendition.... Anyhow, for anyone wanting to TAKE BACK YOUR SMILEY FACE from Wal-Mart:
check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l6vwAIAqNU
The classic WE cartoon shows a fat capitalist lounging in a hammock. One side of the hammock is held up by a straining, eye bulging worker, the other is attached to a tree. Meanwhile a bearded revolutionary is swinging at the tree with an ax. "They're trying to take away our tree," says the capitalist to the worker.
Google tells me the cartoon was created by Fred Wright, artist for the United Electrical Workers, but I can't find the cartoon itself.
Good piece! And, what is most remarkable is that it appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune. Those Salt Lake City Mormmons practically invented the hyper individualized, smiley-face-positive-thinking-in-service-to-capitalism culture.
I recall in one of Aldous Huxley's distopia novels, maybe Brave New World, everyone was urged to repeat the phrase, "The sky is blue, inside of you," as their lives were totally controlled by whatever combine was running things.
Now variations on that anti-mantra bombard the populace day and night from the all-powerful boobtoob.
That's right. USAns can always convince themselves they're happy as long as the TV is on or they have a cell phone slapped to their ears.
In 1911, the great Joe Hill wrote 'The Preacher and the Slave'. That was almost 100 years ago.
Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet
Chorus:
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die
And the Starvation Army they play,
And they sing and they clap and they pray,
Till they get all your coin on the drum,
Then they tell you when you're on the bum
Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out
And they holler, they jump and they shout
Give your money to Jesus, they say,
He will cure all diseases today
If you fight hard for children and wife-
Try to get something good in this life-
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.
Workingmen of all countries, unite
Side by side we for freedom will fight
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain
Final Chorus:
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and how to fry;
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good
Then you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye
I find it ironic that this article came from Salt Lake City.
Othripper
What Joe Hill wrote is reminiscent of some of the lyrics in Les McCann's classic song from 1969 Compared to What [from the Swiss Movement album]:
Church on Sunday, sleep and nod,
Tryin' to duck the wrath of God.
Preachers filling us with fright,
They're all trying to teach us what they think is right.
They really got to be some kind of nut!
Everybody now,
Try to make it real compared to what?
alittle more of Les
Nobody gives us a rhyme or reason
half of one doubt they call it treason
Looks like we always end up in a rut!
Try to make it real compared to what!?
"Together, with the local, diocesan Catholic Charities affiliates, Catholic Charities is the second largest social service provider in the United States and it is only surpassed by the US Federal Government." In its various forms, Catholic Charities is also the largest charitable organization on the planet. Coincidentally, it is also one of the lowest cost providers with some of the lowest salary bases in the charitable industry. Religious giving in the United states represented over 1/3 of all charitable giving in 2008 (of a total of over $200bn). And there is no one within the organized Catholic church who is getting rich from this giving (outside of frauds), particularly the "preachers".
Ehrenreich's bout with breast cancer and the cloying "pink ribbon culture" that surrounds this dreaded disease (she was urged to see her cancer as a "gift") made her explore our cultural obsession with being happy.
My girlfriend has been fighting breast cancer now for three years. While the various forms of chemotherapy have kept her alive, to call the disease a "gift" is as gross an insult as the existence of George Wanker Bush who inflicted the cancer of his greatness on all our lives. If you consider nausea, extreme ongoing exhaustion, neuropathy, diarrhea, fighting with insurance companies and the recurring bouts of "my life is coming to an end" thinking are "gifts", you need your head thoroughly and exhaustively examined.
Sioux Rose
MORDECHAI: I am sorry for your girlfriend's health issue. Please make sure she's getting some VITAL foods. Do you have a juicer? If you can get organic produce and juice it, it would help her body rebuild. I hope it works out WELL for both of you. My college roommate is on chemo now, too.