Letters to the Editor
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processing the soul out of everything
I'm not an American, I'm a Brit living in the UK and it occurs to me that the American genius for mass production and the economies of scale is what lies behind the unfolding catastrophe that is the American political system in its current state.
You have such a large country, it's a continent really rather than a country, you have such a diverse population drawn from many genetic pools that in good faith you feel bound to confect one myth after another of what it means to be an American and there is a necessary simplification in all that. The deification of business in America (as if simply nothing else matters) infected politics and then the media. Big Business has no time for nuance, it can't by definition even operate within the most optimal talent pools to get the right people, as interviewing people is down largely to luck. Dilbert pointed out, it can't be true as US businesses like to maintain, that they all have the best people. Think of the typical American cheese and the typical French or Italian one. or Mustard even. Philedelphia is to cheeses what Fox is to news. It sort of fills a hole but there's nothing there.
America is a big country and impatient corporate-sponsored politicians have to do endless travel to deliver the same speeches again and again to get name or face recognition. There is no time for an authentic candidate, there's just no time. Everything has work to the clock of the simulacrum and instead of any doubt they indelibly stamp the hustings with self-aggrandizing certainty speaking to that base's most potent prejudices. It's as if the electoral process mitigates against a thinking candidate and genuine exchange between the candidate and the people in attendance.
When Peter Oborne [uk journalist] did a tour of America just before the '04 election, he spoke to quite a few republicans at different hustings and he was astonished to find that their answers to his questions matched word for word the talking points of the endless advertising they were subjected to. Kerry? "he's just a flip-flopper"
When I think of someone like Rove who is a very knowledgable and capable strategist, I always feel that he is stiffing his base, he has no real interest in what interests them, i.e the outcomes they want, he just wants the numbers.
The lure of easy certainty, that's what as humans we should all be striving to avoid, but your inherent genius for process and mass reproduction and hard work as a nation and the stress that creates and the valuable human time that it eats up has managed to enshrine it as the greatest virtue. When you are so busy putting so much energy into something, wouldn't it just be devastating to find out that it was the wrong thing all along, wouldn't it just be better to not think about that? That's where you are now, you've backed the wrong horse in '00 and '04 [cheating or no cheating] and huge energy is being put in trying to convince you that the other horse is even worse [i.e you'll get attacked again]
it's all about product and about standardisation of process and guarantees of outcomes [no contingency planning, afghanistan, iraq, katrina] and all of this driven through a deluded administration who thinks that saying it is so, makes it so.
depressing doesn't even begin to describe this.
also I agree with every word of 2-cent's contribution
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And in the process of 'demolishing' my argument
"Pazure uses "Chinese people" in the comprehensive demolishing of the "FDRs mistakes were just like Bush's" argument,"
Pazure, and apparently yourself, walked into accepting the premise that Japanese-Americans had something to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor (after failing to challenge my Vietnam analogy with anything more than some mythical hot air about Kennedy). Perhaps you should step back from your histrionic ranting and reflect on the fact that your hatred of Bush, albeit justified, has led you to agree with Michelle Malkin. Again, the pervasiveness of a lack of genuine self-doubt and the capacity for mature discourse ("another rotten grape"? seriously, grow up and get an education before you start flinging clumsy metaphors at people), on both sides of the political spectrum, reveals itself.
Then again, my overall point (which Pazure seemed to miss in his rage) is that Birkenhead's thesis on how a uniquely modern epidemic of 'lazy Americans' allows is this is simply false, constructed on a myth. Look at Bush's approval rating and the 2006 elections for Exhibit A, and for Exhibit B, look at how past presidents have carried out atrocities with the consent of an uninformed and morally weak electorate.
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Governor of Texas
When asked whether the bible should be made available to students in Spanish the answer was: No, if it was good enough in English for Jesus, its good enough for me!
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Bush in Albania
Watching the reception he got by the Albanian populace, would it not be a good idea to ship him there for keeps. My guess is that this enthusiasm is going to erode pretty damn fast , but it would still be better to have him there,the damage he could do would only be local. But then the Albanians deserve better, they only seem deluded.
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Is lack of doubt connected to evangelical faith ?
This interesting article fails to mention one of the root sources of the president's fatuous certainty: his born again faith. While I take religion and spirituality very seriously, I am troubled by a doctrine which encourages followers to "only believe" and banishes self doubt as a lack of faith. Bush appears to believe he is on "a mission from God" (and has about the same intellectual depth as Elwood Blues) and therefore believes in having no doubt.In the hands of limited intellects such as the President's,such religious doctrines can easily persuade the person of their rightness without painful self examination.How much of the the know-nothingness of current politics and policy is fueled by this faith based ,not fact based, certainty?
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But I doubt it
A small correction for tomreedtoon: Sirhan Sirhan was Jordanian, from Christian parents.
A little lesson from my life has been the only time I've really f***ed things up have been when I was absolutely, positively sure of myself. I just seem to operate better with a tinge of self-doubt. And, yes, sometimes that leads to indecisiveness, and that has it's own problems. Flip flopping aside, I have found that four of the most powerful words at my disposal are "I've changed my mind".
You see that same sort of self-assuredness in the evolution denial crowd (The Bible Says It, I Believe It, That Settles It) and the global warming is a hoax crew. I'd like to think that reasoned debate would open their eyes, but I doubt it.