A friend of mine posted an article Noam Chomsky wrote for Salon about how the U.S. is fucking up. And I agree, we are fucking up. But I would love to see some solutions rather than just a list of charges against the U.S. I really don't know who this article is being written for. If you are reading it, you probably already know all the things he is talking about (drone attacks, oligopoly rising, the climate is fucked, etc). You can nod along and agree but after that, then what? There is no call to action, no solution presented for our ills, just a recognition of them. And I know why.
The beginning of the article was far more stimulating in that it argued that US is not a true democracy (which, again, you should sort of know already). Corporations influence the media, the media influences voters and campaigns are pure PR. No shit. Fox news and MSNBC didn't just create themselves, though. Networks fail all the time. People are choosing to watch them. People are choosing to watch them more than boring old "fair" news channels like Headline news or CNN.
I believe that a lot of passionate political thinkers have a streak of naive humanism in them. They believe that, all else being equal, if the unadorned facts were presented to people, they would react rationally. Chomsky makes a point of saying democracy is based on an informed electorate making rational decisions but that the media undermines this goal. He also derides the idea espoused by some liberals that the common man can't think for himself and must be led to the truth. So, can people think for themselves or are they being led astray by the media? The fact that people are letting the media lead them astray would seem to validate the claim that most people are sheep. People have to choose to be in the choir to which the preaching is aimed.
John Stewart and the Daily Show love to point out how the media fails at fact checking and honesty in reporting. They would like to move the news back to the Cronkite era of facts without editorialization. Which is a fine goal but what was different between now and then? Oh right, there were only three broadcast networks. Today, people can choose from a whole big pile of media. Just like traveling to a strange town, Americans can now be assured that they can eat the same Whopper in Wisconsin as they can in Idaho or walk into a Wal-Mart anywhere and know where to find a specific item. Anecdotally, I know plenty of people who do not like to be adventurous when they travel outside their home cities. They want the food they know they like. They want the stores they know their way around. This is just basic human nature 101. Just like choosing the least scary restaurant and store, why would a liberal choose to sit and watch Fox News when they can watch Rachel Maddow tell them that they are right about everything? Shit, Sean Hannity makes me want to punch something.
I don't know if I believe in followers versus leaders but I do believe in seekers versus acceptors. Lots of people are just raised to believe something and that is what they believe until they die. And maybe everyone goes through a seeking period (usually college or something) but then returns to the safe bosom of what they have always believed (but now they can back it up with theories and rhetoric). The difference between seekers and acceptors, I would argue, is not so much intelligence as opportunity. If you are middle class and above, you have time to be Chomsky. You have time to think about politics and how aggressive war games might be poking the North Korean bear instead of the North Korean bear's crazy dance inspiring the war games (there is a lot of implied causation in the article where only correlation exists, at best). Poor people, regardless of gender or ethnicity, don't really give a shit about corporate malfeasance and Iran's nuclear policy. In a perfect world, would the electorate want to be informed and rational? Sure, probably. But this is where academia and reality part company. Chomsky seems to think the citizens of the U.S. are an Aristotelian ideal of an electorate being bullied and hectored by the rich and corporations. "We would be smarter in our decisions, if only you would let us!"
I say "bullshit" to that. We give up control and responsibility for our own lives every day. Money buys you freedom to think for yourself and control your environment more and more (thus acquiring more money). The same problem with communism is the same problem with capitalism, those in power will never voluntarily relinquish it. Even all the millionaires who are saying "Tax me more!" would never allow themselves to be taxed back to a middle class income. Communism calls for overthrowing the rich and making everyone equals but...of course, there has to be a transitioning government between being a capitalist country and a communist one, some group in power that facilitates the redistribution of wealth. Once they are in power, as we clearly saw in Russia after 1917, they don't step aside. They just abuse their new found power as bad as the original ruling class did, if not worse. For every Trotsky there are 100 Lenins.
I have written before that people in the singular are good, thoughtful, helpful, fair and just. People as a collective are petty, vindictive, greedy, violent and horrid. As a group, without personal accountability, you get lynchings and riots and public beheadings. This is why there is no real change without violence (physical or economic) and those willing to get shit done are also the ones you can't trust to just abdicate their own self-interest for the good of the group.
This, then, is my frustration. To change politics, governments and policies towards justice and fairness is to change fundamentals of human behavior that have never not been a problem. Willing apathy on the part of the privileged, necessary apathy on the part of the destitute, the loss of moral integrity when diluted in a group, the need to maintain power once it is achieved...these facts of human existence are why true humanist leaders are exceptional and earmarked by history. Just like serial killers and circus freaks, people who are able to maintain selflessness are abnormalities. Not that their activities shouldn't be admired or inspirational, just that their actions shouldn't be considered a bar that everyone can realistically rise to.
I don't know, I know this sounds cynical and pessimistic. It just seems overwhelmingly obvious that human nature gets ugly the larger and more diverse a group of people are involved. Get down to a tribal or even small town level, and I think you can get most people on the same page. Much larger than that, consensus is an illusion and any system (or non-system) of government is just going to have to do the best it can. Leadership is always going to be needed and those leaders will always be human (until the Martians invade). The fact of their humanity means, no system of government is ever going to work perfectly or even fairly, to be honest. Any "fixing" we do will be band-aids on cancer but that doesn't mean we ever need to stop trying. If you hate the drone program, do something that makes maintaining that program unfeasible (politically or economically). If you think taxes are bullshit, well, they are inevitable but maybe you can make them less soul-crushing?
I know, a long rant for nothing but I just get tired of finger-wagging from both ends of the spectrum without any realistic solutions. Feel free to pontificate on political matters to your heart's content but outrage without purpose just exhausts me. Solutions aren't going to be found in Utopian ideals. Let's bring the conversation back to the real world where politicians worry about elections (hence, Obama can't ignore terrorism or democrats are "soft on terror" and can't invade other countries with ground troops so he has this half-assed, probably illegal drone thing going). Whatever the topic is, the first question should be "what are our realistic options?" and that excludes everything that begins with the words "ideally" or "hopefully."
NOTE: I do agree with Chomsky that the current political trend of "no compromise" is kind of bullshit. Fucking nothing is getting done. I'm glad we all have our beliefs, now let's figure out how to live together realistically instead of like 10 year olds who take their toys and go home if they don't get their way. But that is another rant.
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