All of Us American Slaves
In an article posted a short while ago on Downside (for which quite often "Far-Fetched" is the more apt term) World News and on the Alternet, a writer named Joshua Holland asked why Americans weren't following the example of many others around the globe, by reacting strongly against the current drastic economic downturn and pouring out into the streets in huge numbers to protest. "Why aren't we rioting?" he asked.
The answer he gave was that it was because Americans have been stomped down so thoroughly after previous efforts to rebel that it has become a passive, acquiscent society, and thus an agglomeration of slaves.
In a world thzt is as pitted with pools of total hogwash as Ontario and Minnesota are with lakes, a view like that still stands out in the realm of nonsense.
If J. Holland is an American, I do not think he has been one for very long. Or, if he has, he hasn't spent much time observing how his fellow Americans really are. For sure he can't be a thinking Rainbow, and especially one who has been around for a while.
Actually Holland should count himself -- and all his fellow Americans -- lucky that in the U.S. the economic difficulties have been taken in relative stride, because, if he had spent much time in checking out American behavior, and especially if he knew anything about the experience of the Rainbow citizens, he would know that majority Americans are actually quite quick to hit the streets with clubs and torches, with not much needed to set them off, especially if the villains in their minds are sufficiently color-coded and so easily identifiable. But then how many people of Holland's persuasion have any feeling for or knowledge of the long series of very serious race riots that marked the last half of the 19th and much of the 20th century?
Holland mentioned the Whiskey Rebellion, the Civil war, and the Black Militants of the 1960's as examples of revolts that in time were thoroughly squashed and thus ultimately contributed to American "servitude." But did they? And where in the American soul is that servitude that is so implicit in the often too-free use of the term "slavery?"
Making and selling whiskey without paying any taxes just went underground and to this day continues while having lost little of its luster. Try living in a great many of today's countrysides and see. Nor was the Civil War really lost by the South. That region merely regrouped and today a great many of its wheeler-dealers continue to comprise the main shoulder that is put to the wheel in pushing the country to the right and toward the ultimate pit of fascism. Substituting western states like Idaho, Utah, and Oklahoma for the three more truly Southern states that nevertheless went blue, the most recent electoral map could have been mistaken for the lineup of the contesting states in Lincoln's time. And militancy is still as alive and well as ever in the Rainbow community.
The main reason -- among many -- for the lack of U.S. protests against the current economic slump and other big problems, like health care and climate change, is just the opposite. Most Americans stand squarely instead on the "M" side of the ever-present master-slave equation instead of the "S," and they are always looking for the opportunity to be the masters in the situation.
The villains of the economy mess are just the kind of people that a great many Americans aspire to becoming themselves, and it would be illogical for them to demand that real punishment be meted out to their role models. As easily you could expect to see them protesting en masse against football and movie stars, or against mobsters or serial killers for that matter.
And if any were disposed toward doing just that anyway, the worst of the economic bad news broke when the administration then in place and that therefore could be accused of letting the bad practices happen would soon be gone anyway, while the new administration is trying hard to set things back into kilter, and so they must be given a chance.
But even if things don't improve markedly in the next several years, I doubt that we will see real protests then either.
The often-used image of the frog not noticing that he was being scalded to death because he was in the slowly heating pot from the beginning comes to mind.
Quietly coping is as American as anything else, especially if they're not pushed too quickly into it.
The answer he gave was that it was because Americans have been stomped down so thoroughly after previous efforts to rebel that it has become a passive, acquiscent society, and thus an agglomeration of slaves.
In a world thzt is as pitted with pools of total hogwash as Ontario and Minnesota are with lakes, a view like that still stands out in the realm of nonsense.
If J. Holland is an American, I do not think he has been one for very long. Or, if he has, he hasn't spent much time observing how his fellow Americans really are. For sure he can't be a thinking Rainbow, and especially one who has been around for a while.
Actually Holland should count himself -- and all his fellow Americans -- lucky that in the U.S. the economic difficulties have been taken in relative stride, because, if he had spent much time in checking out American behavior, and especially if he knew anything about the experience of the Rainbow citizens, he would know that majority Americans are actually quite quick to hit the streets with clubs and torches, with not much needed to set them off, especially if the villains in their minds are sufficiently color-coded and so easily identifiable. But then how many people of Holland's persuasion have any feeling for or knowledge of the long series of very serious race riots that marked the last half of the 19th and much of the 20th century?
Holland mentioned the Whiskey Rebellion, the Civil war, and the Black Militants of the 1960's as examples of revolts that in time were thoroughly squashed and thus ultimately contributed to American "servitude." But did they? And where in the American soul is that servitude that is so implicit in the often too-free use of the term "slavery?"
Making and selling whiskey without paying any taxes just went underground and to this day continues while having lost little of its luster. Try living in a great many of today's countrysides and see. Nor was the Civil War really lost by the South. That region merely regrouped and today a great many of its wheeler-dealers continue to comprise the main shoulder that is put to the wheel in pushing the country to the right and toward the ultimate pit of fascism. Substituting western states like Idaho, Utah, and Oklahoma for the three more truly Southern states that nevertheless went blue, the most recent electoral map could have been mistaken for the lineup of the contesting states in Lincoln's time. And militancy is still as alive and well as ever in the Rainbow community.
The main reason -- among many -- for the lack of U.S. protests against the current economic slump and other big problems, like health care and climate change, is just the opposite. Most Americans stand squarely instead on the "M" side of the ever-present master-slave equation instead of the "S," and they are always looking for the opportunity to be the masters in the situation.
The villains of the economy mess are just the kind of people that a great many Americans aspire to becoming themselves, and it would be illogical for them to demand that real punishment be meted out to their role models. As easily you could expect to see them protesting en masse against football and movie stars, or against mobsters or serial killers for that matter.
And if any were disposed toward doing just that anyway, the worst of the economic bad news broke when the administration then in place and that therefore could be accused of letting the bad practices happen would soon be gone anyway, while the new administration is trying hard to set things back into kilter, and so they must be given a chance.
But even if things don't improve markedly in the next several years, I doubt that we will see real protests then either.
The often-used image of the frog not noticing that he was being scalded to death because he was in the slowly heating pot from the beginning comes to mind.
Quietly coping is as American as anything else, especially if they're not pushed too quickly into it.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 7:00 PM
1 Comments:
Actually, if you had read a bit more carefully you'd have noted that I quoted Mark Ames making that particular argument, and that I leaned toward a very different explanation myself.
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