Odd Times in the U.S.

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Life is always odd in the U.S., but now it seems to have gone over the top. 

If you pay attention to TV these days, beyond railing at the many really inane shows, you may be surprised to notice plenty of content that reveals a complete disdain for corporate values. For instance, “Playmakers” is a new series on ESPN—the 24-hour sports channel. The show, very well acted and written, is a devastating attack on professional football, exposing the sexism, corporate greed, and authoritarianism at the heart of the matter...and, implicitly, at the heart of all corporate matters. 

“Peacemakers” is a summer replacement show—a western—on the USA network. It takes place around the turn of the 20th century and incorporates then-bourgeoning forensic science into the plot by having the sheriff solve murder mysteries with the help of a scientist using these new methods. A recent episode featured Standard Oil as the villain. When the company’s hired thugs failed to steal the patents for a solar power invention, they tried to kill the inventor. When that failed, they hired him to work in their research department where, as the sheriff speculated, the inventor would soon give up his dreams of solar power, co-opted by Standard Oil’s steady paycheck. The sheriff and the scientist also think the company will fold sooner or later, as there will be little use for their product. At that moment, someone drives through town in a Model T automobile and the credits roll. Although westerns have a tradition of wealthy land owners as bad guys, this show breaks new ground by explicitly dramatizing a corporation's motives to obstruct clean and cheap alternative technologies in favor of monopoly, profit, and pollution.  

The fiction bestseller list also has a surprising number of books critical of corporate greed and the environmental degradation and death that often results from inhumane corporate policies. This evidence (and numerous other examples) from popular culture suggests that at some level the public knows that everything is broken. No one trusts or sees reason to trust most agents of power and wealth. People assume the worst about others, particularly about authority and institutions. Looking at that as evidence, we might want to prepare to celebrate an imminent storming of the palace, so to speak. 

Stage right, however, lurks California—a beautiful state in which a muscle-bound, talent-challenged actor runs for governor. He is apparently grossly misogynist, subject to endless accusations of abuse. He is an agent of the party of power and wealth—of course, most candidates are, but he is more so. He is reputed to be a closet Nazi. Even if it isn’t true, why would anyone want to risk finding out? Yet he wins. Worse, the turnout is a record 80 percent. Plus, the state is over half people of color: Black, Latino, Native American, and immigrant. Looking at that ugly picture as evidence, we might want to buy plane tickets out of here or something equally  self-serving and desperate. 

Meanwhile, Bush speaks almost exclusively at military gatherings—the only place he is sure he can whip up serious applause as the audience is under orders to oblige. Is this a sign of desperation or a sign we are headed ever more surely toward a total militarization of Washington? On the military-industrial complex front, instead of lobbyists going to government officials, government officials now routinely go to meetings of CEO’s and owners to beg for support and to offer policy as the bribe, not the payoff. 

Why is the public both broadly aware of what is transpiring, but still so passive about doing anything serious to try to improve life in the U.S. and U.S. imposed oppressions  abroad? Why do people in the U.S. know the horrors that define their position to such an extent that it forms a backdrop for their entertainment, and yet also get enjoyment out of Arnold’s idiotic one-liners, voting against the old thugs only to enshrine new ones? 

Is the answer mostly because, while not significantly deluded, the U.S. population is significantly hopeless? If that is the case, then to tear down the walls of empire, don’t we need to generate hope rather than point out the extreme height and profound depth of those walls? Imagine what would be happen if we all believed that some course of action could, in fact, tear down the walls, however long it might take.