roachboy

the salon article host links above is really quite interesting...it's basic claim is that the american public--acting through a variety of mechanisms only one or two of which are actually present in the article--imposes a kind of filtering on information regarding the war in iraq, reacting in a strongly negative way to reports that demonstrate the illusory character of the various conservative cliches about "our troops" and their virtuous conduct in iraq and afghanistan.

it is well worth a read and perhaps a discussion--if not here, then in another thread.

i am a bit suspicious of the claims in the article in part because they are REALLY depressing if true---these claims would indicate a kind of collective refusal to see on the part of the american public (who are these people?) that makes them thoroughly complicit in maintaining the illusions fundamental to the marketing of the bush administration--second, the claims are based on anecdotal evidence that is at once interesting (in that it discusses a region of social conflict that i know little about) and problematic (in that it does not try to advance any theories as to the organization of these reactions) so leaves you thinking

"perhaps we, collectively, really are fucked because we, collectively, will not face the consequences of our own actions."

and perhaps we are.

and no, none of this is normal---but saying as much reminds me of what durkheim talks about in his book "suicide" concerning the problems that attend the claim that a given social-historical framework is pathological---particularly if that frame is also one's own---which follow from the simple fact that we are adaptive creatures and our frames move with the larger ones----so there is no obvious point of view outside from which to say:

"see? i'm standing here and just look......shit's moving thatta way------->"

what is clear is that most americans live in an ideological bubble. for me, the first and almost overwhelming demonstration of this came during the first gulf war----i happened to find myself in paris at the point when french tv began broadcasting live feeds from cnn as a broadcast options--you could switch into and back out of america-land, to french coverage and back again. on the french stations, you had the networks pet general standing near a relief map of kuwait moving little plastic models around with a croupier's stick--on cnn, it was all to wall flag graphics and martial music and jingo-coverage. wall to fucking wall.

the french stations were reporting on a war: the cnn coverage was selling that war.

you don't have to come out of a marxist background to see a problem in this--you just have to look from a position that affords a comparison.

my personal sense of political hope lay in the possibility that people are not replicating the fatuous ideological bubble within which they can operate if they let themselves--that people are smarter than they are treated as being.

and it is the case that in all the social networks i am part of this seems to be bourne out---but like anyone, i see these networks, know these networks----and the drop-off between them and this abstraction called "america" is pretty steep.

but you know, you assemble a sense of that abstraction from wandering around in public spaces and just taking in what people say---and it's pretty grim for the most part--but even so, there's generally enough noise about that one can maintain one's spirits and not simply get trashed because there seems no alternative.

and then an article like the salon piece host bit from above comes along and makes you wonder what you do this for.
so you have problems with the article.
maybe the same thing obtains for me: i dont want to see what this america place has become, is becoming, and it's polyanna of me to imagine that people hold the idiocy--and i mean that---of the ideological bubble apart from themselves----maybe it's the case that many many people simply replicate it, that they see the world in terms shaped by it. that is, they do not see it as stupid or even as a bubble: they see it as given.

blech.
because if this is true for most folk, then we are well and truly screwed.
we cannot adapt to changing and potentially scary realities because we cannot face them.
this is reflected in the narrow and empty realm of politics.
this is reflected in the flight into entertainments of various non-challenging varieties.
it is reflected in the debt bubble. it is reflected in the fact that people refuse to get rid of their suv's even when gas is 3.50 a gallon. it is reflected in everything. denial is the modus operandus. it's what makes america what it now is.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite