View Single Post
Old 03-08-2005, 08:39 AM   #10 (permalink)
roachboy
 
roachboy's Avatar
 
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
and here we run into one of the most surreal aspects of the right patriotic marketing campaign--that conservatives cannot face even the slightest amount of data that might puncture their assumption that the united states is the most fabulous of all possible nation-states, that cowboy capitalism is the most humane possible system and so forth.

most of the problems outlined above with the reality of the american system are not new--some of them even require attention--but the only certainty in the world i know of is that the right will never be able to address any of it because they cant bring themselves to be self-critical.

for example--the import/export imbalances are at once a direct result of globalizing capitalism and are irrelevant at the same time--because the dynamics of globalizing capitalism runs against the continued importance of nation-states. the entire conservative movement is geared toward trying to preserve this antiquated notion of the nation-state because--and only because--without it their ideology collapses. to do this, they need to never look at the reality of the economic system that the rest of their politics leaves them no choice but to defend as an unqualified good.

the american health care system is a disaster--best to deal with it by either refusing to look or qualifying all possible alternatives as communist.

the american educational system is among the most brutal in terms of reproducing the class structure at its most naked and unjustifiable--the problem seems to be the insistence on tying educational funding to local property taxes, which has the effect of rendering spatial segregation on class lines nearly invisible and assuring that the children of the poor are routed one way and those of the affluent another. of course because the right cannot imagine any alternative that would involve equalizing funding levels across localities--because it would involve the state (which is the inverse of markets for them) they cannot propose a coherent alternative--so you get this absurd, self-defeating emphasis on obviously futile programs like vouchers...

it goes on and on.

better to trade looking at reality for being able to wave a flag and "feel good about america"
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite
roachboy is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360