MMM_wms
Really Really Experienced
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2019
- Posts
- 318
I just ordered a book that’ll come out on Monday, “Evil Geniuses – The Unmaking of America” by Kurt Andersen. In the eyes of the author, one factor contributing to America’s demise has been the all too easy willingness of the liberal elite in the 1970s, to not resists all sorts of shenanigans sold by Reagan to the unwary American public. Like starting to dismantle government, because – according to Reagan’s propaganda – government should be seen as a problem. It was indeed one, but only a problem for the rich on their way to getting ever richer.
As I wait to start reading the book, my thoughts go back to the early 1970s, when I left the USA to go back home again. And I asked myself: “Aside from everything that worked right then (compared to nowadays), what had been some principal flaws of American society even then?” I see a number of them, and my thesis says, these flaws from way back when, could easily be the root causes, which contributed mightily, to the US of A becoming a dysfunctional society by now. So what were these flaws, the root causes of today’s disaster?
Racism is number one for sure. Maybe the top cause of all evil in America. Because no society can survive over the long run, with such a basic dishonesty at the basis of its core. And racism points to principal flaw #2: dishonesty and unrealism.
By the 1970s that was manifested manly thru the way a great many Americans were unwilling to face up to the message contained in the Pentagon Papers, the goddamned pack of lies many Americans still believe in today regarding Vietnam. Whether racism-based or rooted in that fateful belief of American exceptionalism, i.e. based on hubris primarily.
OK, I should talk, my country suffered from this affliction also, far too long. But we got our asses whipped so badly in 1945, that only very few fools here are still convinced of German exceptionalism now. BTW, we also had a fearless leader once, whose aim was to “Make Germany Great Again”. But one can see plainly, where that had gotten us. Trouble is, the same thing is happening to America right now. Because hubris is good for nothing but trouble.
What I find truly sad: fifty years ago or so, the USA had been an unquestioned leadership role model for the whole world, and by now all that is left of America’s former role in the world, are the Googles and Amazons and other high tech companies in the country. The WE of America has given way to individual players, which “the new American way” that got going in force by the 1980s, helped foster.
With “America the country” going to the dogs, more and more, from one year to the next. And inequality plus corruption scaling ever new heights. And all that mainly because few individuals are now better off than before, with the rest of the country living by the mercy of the financial mafia, which is running the show.
Too bad that quasi-liberals like Clinton aided in bringing this about. Think about abolishing the Glass-Steagall Act on his watch. And other moves towards privatization. Too bad also that everybody and his brother all across the world, followed the bad example of America, before some societies have begun waking up and turning back a bit.
And too bad also that so many Americans believe right-wing propaganda. Which paints the feeble attempts at waking up in America, as dangerous moves to the left. Moves made by reformers with – quite necessarily so – leftward directions in their policy proposals. What’s to be expected other than left directions now, after America’s uncontrolled slide to the Far Right for decades?
As I wait to start reading the book, my thoughts go back to the early 1970s, when I left the USA to go back home again. And I asked myself: “Aside from everything that worked right then (compared to nowadays), what had been some principal flaws of American society even then?” I see a number of them, and my thesis says, these flaws from way back when, could easily be the root causes, which contributed mightily, to the US of A becoming a dysfunctional society by now. So what were these flaws, the root causes of today’s disaster?
Racism is number one for sure. Maybe the top cause of all evil in America. Because no society can survive over the long run, with such a basic dishonesty at the basis of its core. And racism points to principal flaw #2: dishonesty and unrealism.
By the 1970s that was manifested manly thru the way a great many Americans were unwilling to face up to the message contained in the Pentagon Papers, the goddamned pack of lies many Americans still believe in today regarding Vietnam. Whether racism-based or rooted in that fateful belief of American exceptionalism, i.e. based on hubris primarily.
OK, I should talk, my country suffered from this affliction also, far too long. But we got our asses whipped so badly in 1945, that only very few fools here are still convinced of German exceptionalism now. BTW, we also had a fearless leader once, whose aim was to “Make Germany Great Again”. But one can see plainly, where that had gotten us. Trouble is, the same thing is happening to America right now. Because hubris is good for nothing but trouble.
What I find truly sad: fifty years ago or so, the USA had been an unquestioned leadership role model for the whole world, and by now all that is left of America’s former role in the world, are the Googles and Amazons and other high tech companies in the country. The WE of America has given way to individual players, which “the new American way” that got going in force by the 1980s, helped foster.
With “America the country” going to the dogs, more and more, from one year to the next. And inequality plus corruption scaling ever new heights. And all that mainly because few individuals are now better off than before, with the rest of the country living by the mercy of the financial mafia, which is running the show.
Too bad that quasi-liberals like Clinton aided in bringing this about. Think about abolishing the Glass-Steagall Act on his watch. And other moves towards privatization. Too bad also that everybody and his brother all across the world, followed the bad example of America, before some societies have begun waking up and turning back a bit.
And too bad also that so many Americans believe right-wing propaganda. Which paints the feeble attempts at waking up in America, as dangerous moves to the left. Moves made by reformers with – quite necessarily so – leftward directions in their policy proposals. What’s to be expected other than left directions now, after America’s uncontrolled slide to the Far Right for decades?
