Re: American Empire as Gated Community

[Paulrichard10@attbi.com]

<< To many Americans, this sounds like socialism, big government, the
nanny state. But so what? The result is: Europe has less crime and less
poverty and arguably higher quality of life than the U.S., which makes
a lot of us wonder why America doesn't want some of what we've got. >>

That's how the 'proles' are kept in line. "Surely, comrades. Surely, you 
don't 
want Jones back" said one of the pigs in Orwell's ANIMAL FARM. I.e., if 
one can 
make an assertion that a social program engenders socialism or even 
Communism...

The oldest trick in the book. Not as old as the world's oldest professin, 
though.
> (from the jefferson airplane family mailing list)
> 
> 
> December 30, 2002
> 
> American Empire as Gated Community
> by BRIAN ENO
> 
> The American edition of Time will not be running the piece, as
> apparently they think that even the mildest criticism from our warmest
> friends will be too much for a U.S. audience to handle. B. Eno
> 
> 
> 
> "Europeans have always looked at America with a mixture of fascination
> and puzzlement, and now, increasingly, disbelief. How is it that a
> country that prides itself on its economic success could have so many
> very poor people?
> 
> How is it that a country so insistent on the rule of law should seek to
> exempt itself from international agreements? And how is it that the
> world's beacon of democracy can have elections dominated by wealthy
> special interest groups? For me, the question has become: "How can a
> country that has produced so much cultural and economic wealth act so
> dumb?"
> 
> I could fill this page with the names of Americans who have influenced,
> entertained and educated me. They represent what I admire about
> America: a vigorous originality of thought, and a confidence that
> things can be changed for the better.
> 
> That was the America I lived in and enjoyed from 1978 until 1983. That
> America was an act of faith--the faith that "otherness" was not
> threatening but nourishing, the faith that there could be a country big
> enough in spirit to welcome and nurture all the diversity the world
> could throw at it. But that vision is being eclipsed by a suspicious,
> introverted America, a country-sized version of that peculiarly
> American form of ghetto: the gated community.
> 
> A gated community is defensive. Designed to keep the "others" out, it
> dissolves the rich web of society into a random clustering of
> disconnected individuals. It turns paranoia and isolation into a
> lifestyle.
> 
> Surely this isn't the America that anyone dreamed of; it's a last
> resort, nobody's choice. It's especially ironic since so much of the
> best new thinking about society, economics, politics and philosophy in
> the last century came from America. Unhampered by the snobbery and
> exclusivity of much European thought, American thinkers vaulted
> forward--courageous,innovative and determined to talk in a public
> language.
> 
> But, unfortunately, over the same period, the mass media vaulted
> backwards, thriving on increasingly simple stories and trivializing
> news into something indistinguishable from entertainment. As a result,
> a wealth of original and subtle thought--America's real wealth--is
> squandered.
> 
> This narrowing of the American mind is exacerbated by the withdrawal of
> the left from active politics. Virtually ignored by the media, the left
> has further marginalized itself by a retreat into introspective
> cultural criticism. It seems content to do yoga and gender studies,
> leaving the fundamentalist Christian right and the multinationals to do
> the politics.
> 
> The separation of church and state seems to be breaking down too.
> Political discourse is now dominated by moralizing, like George W.
> Bush's promotion of American "family values" abroad, and dissent is
> unpatriotic. "You're either with us or against us" is the kind of cant
> you'd expect from a zealous mullah, not an American president.
> 
> When Europeans make such criticisms, Americans assume we're envious.
> "They want what we've got," the thinking goes, "and if they can't get
> it, they're going to stop us from having it." But does everyone want
> what America has? Well, we like some of it but could do without the
> rest: the highest rates of violent crime, economic inequality,
> functional illiteracy, incarceration and drug use in the developed
> world. President Bush recently declared that the U.S. was "the single
> surviving model of human progress".
> 
> Maybe some Americans think this self-evident, but the rest of us see it
> as a clumsy arrogance born of ignorance.
> 
> Europeans tend to regard free national health services, unemployment
> benefits, social housing, and so on as pretty good models of
> humanprogress. We think it's important--civilized, in fact--to help
> people who fall through society's cracks. This isn't just altruism, but
> an understanding that having too many losers in society hurts everyone.
> It's better for everybody to have a stake in society than to have a
> resentful underclass bent on wrecking things.
> 
> To many Americans, this sounds like socialism, big government, the
> nanny state. But so what? The result is: Europe has less crime and less
> poverty and arguably higher quality of life than the U.S., which makes
> a lot of us wonder why America doesn't want some of what we've got.
> 
> Too often, the U.S. presents the "American way" as the only way,
> insisting on its kind of free market Darwinism as the only acceptable"
> model of human progress." But isn't civilization what happens when
> people stop behaving as if they're trapped in a ruthless Darwinian
> struggle and start thinking about communities and shared futures?
> America as a gated community won't work, because not even the world's
> sole superpower can build walls high enough to shield itself from the
> intertwined realities of the 21st century.
> 
> There's a better form of security: reconnect with the rest of the
> world, don't shut it out; stop making enemies and start making friends.
> Perhaps it's asking a lot to expect America to act differently from all
> the other empires in history, but wasn't that the original idea?"
> 
> 
> 
> Brian Eno is a musician who believes that regime change begins at home.
> 
> 
>