THIS IS WHY I WRITE THIS BLOG

Quite frequently, I get comments from readers of this blog. Most are very supportive, some express disagreement, others are incredibly hostile. I publish them all -- unless I consider them a bit too profane -- because I believe in debate, free speech, and competing opinions. Last week, a young man sent a comment and I found myself answering at length. When I was done, I felt that the exchange said a lot about where I'm coming from and why I write this blog -- which is useful in that it gives a larger, yet personal, context to what I'm doing and trying to do. So I decided to publish the whole exchange. I've removed the chap's name in case he wouldn't want it used in this way.


THE COMMENT

[NAME REMOVED] has left a new comment on your post "GUNNING FOR NORTH KOREA":

I have noticed how fashionable it is to attribute atrocities to the United States, especially amongst your generation. The revisionist histories that purport to show America as the great monster of the Cold War -- in Korea, Vietnam, Latin America, Africa -- are all very troubling for their revelation of how undemocratic and hypocritical our foreign policy CAN be in times of national paranoia, but, while indeed I wholly approve of empirical criticism, I am troubled even more by your rhetoric, which seems actuated more by a desire to traduce America than to improve it. (It is also notable -- and provable with Google's Ngram -- that 'US,' the term for America that you use almost exclusively, became the more popular term for America in the late 60's or early 70's, at the height of exactly the sort of anti-Americanism you express. I can only conjecture that it is because 'US' reduces us to a political rather than cultural entity.)

In any case, although your points are not particularly original, I still generally agree with your message: America is not perfect. What bothers me is that you should single America out. As a college student at least two generations your junior, I can say that your anti-American rhetoric peaked around a decade ago, and that the inheritors of America have not inherited your habit of seeing us as a villain. This, too, can be found by entering relevant terms into Ngram, such as 'multicultural' or 'international.' Now, I believe, younger people are realizing that, for all our faults, we still are better than filthy and essentially third-world countries like China that handle 21st-century technologies with 19th-century attitudes. With the fast approaching extinction of your rebellious and irreverent generation, America may at last realize that the narrow-minded self-loathing your generation embodies only blinds us to the even greater evils in Asia.


MY RESPONSE

Firstly, thanks for your comment, which obviously took time and effort, and for putting your name to it. I admire that.

Let me preface my response by saying that I do not single America out, "it" (the power-mongers) has singled itself out. I am only commenting on what I see; although I am not saying that the U.S. is the only tyranny on the planet. I've never said that. But the U.S. is the most powerful and influential tyranny by far. Nor am I limiting my observations to the Cold War, which, for some reason, you used for context.

I disagree with you completely and put it to you that you are arguing from a totally false premise: This is not a generational thing at all; it cuts across generations. In fact, I would assert that folks with your line of thinking, or thereabouts, are in the minority in your own generation. You only have to look at alternative media, visit college campuses, hear what people are saying on buses and trains, look at protest actions, read message boards on news websites, check out blogs, look at the activist non-profits powered largely by younger people, sniff around Facebook, and on and on, and you can see that, if anything, society in general has become much more radical in its thinking. Not progressive, radical. In the sixties, you could argue, there was much more of a generational divide. But there isn’t now. And to suggest that the younger generations are somehow conservative and waiting for the old "hippies" to die off and let them be, just flies in the face of all logic and observation. Unless a person glues their eyes to Fox and CNN 24 hours a day, they simply MUST know that the tide has turned in favor of social change.

There is nothing at all fashionable about attributing atrocities to the United States. As a former right winger who would have made you shudder, (I was about as far from being a "flower child lefty" as one could get), I can tell you that people like me do things from conscience and observation. That is why I have come to the path I’m on. And that is why I talk about U.S. atrocities: because they happened and are documented, and because the U.S. is the most powerful nation on earth and has interfered in more countries than any other nation-state in history -- by far.

But of these atrocities, which of them do you want to erase to prop up your world view and give the U.S. a pass mark as a not-so-bad bully? The massive bombings of Germany when WWII was already won, which slaughtered countless civilians? The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the Japanese wanted to surrender, and then were actually in the process of surrendering? Nixon’s savagery from the air in Vietnam? Our support of sadistic regimes throughout Latin America? Our invasion of Cuba? Our pathetic bravado in Grenada? Our torturing of all manner of people in any number of places? We could talk about Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, the conquering of the Philippines and Hawaii, COINTELPRO, supporting Indonesia while it carried out genocide, etc etc… how many examples does one need? War crime after war crime. Plunder after plunder. Cruelty piled on cruelty.

My father fought in WWII (and was in the peacekeeping forces in Hiroshima where he saw a city that was “completely flat”) and Korea (where he earned the Purple Heart). I was a good listener. I followed up on that by reading, asking questions, being skeptical. I grew up with the Vietnam War on television EVERY NIGHT. So I read about that, and asked questions, and was skeptical. I also grew up in a part of my city that took thousands of Vietnamese refugees into urban camps after the Vietnam War then integrated them into our neighborhoods at a time when there was no abundance of jobs and not enough hospital beds. I questioned this vehemently. But in time I learned the truth and why these people had “moved in.”

It is not a crime that you are young. It’s not even a misdemeanor that you are ignorant. At your age I was very ignorant and very angry. Much worse than you. But there is little excuse, in this day and age, when enough of the truth has made its way into the public realm, that you have not educated yourself better. That is your responsibility. You have a good brain. The world needs it. But it needs it thinking compassionately and clearly, not flexing itself with juvenile pontifications like you just swallowed a dictionary and it went down the wrong way.

On another note, if my “points are not very original,” there is a good reason for that: most of my points are truisms that bear repeating, not the shining revelations of a latter-day prophet. I never claimed to be such. I do not create American history, I just help amplify it -- as it really is. There are things that many of us feel compelled to repeat, to re-express, to keep in the arena of public discourse. Is this irksome to you? Why? I’ll bet your own life is riddled with repetitions much more frivolous than the recounting of crimes against humanity. Consider what you are about to say before you say it, my friend.

As for the Ngram thing, there are many variables in play there. For one example: If the Establishment decides it needs to make a word “dirty” because it’s too close to the truth and threatens their charade of truth, then there’s a good chance a lot of people will stop using that word because the perception of it has changed in the public arena. That’s what our mass media gives us: A glorious propaganda machine that shapes the discourse. Ngram may be a tool of some use in some ways, but don’t lean too heavily on any one lever. Context, patterns, trends: that is where knowledge really exists. And in solid, primary references – documents – of which there is no shortage, supporting the stuff I say in this blog.

When you say that I have a desire to “traduce America more than improve it,” which “America” are you speaking of? If you mean the corporate and political elites who are ruining life for the vast majority, hell, I don’t wish to traduce, I wish to throw them out of their ivory towers! But if you mean the land, the people, and the potential and beauty of America (and don’t get hung up on the U.S. thing, for goodness sakes), then I love this country as much as anyone. This is the country my 8-year-old son and HIS generation will inherit, IF it’s still here. And THAT is a VERY serious thing to me and nothing to do with rhetoric or games. I have hobbies and interests I would much rather spend my time on than typing up a blog after working as a professional writer/editor 10 or 11 hours a day.

Yes, I slam the elites of the U.S., and yes, I am angry about the injustices that I see them inflict both here and abroad. Guilty as charged and proud of it. You should be angry too, if you really love America. The true America.

And I feel pretty sure you do.

Take care,
Adrian

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THE IDIOT CULTURE

Back in the ’90s, while I was still living in Australia, I read an article by Carl Bernstein (pictured) entitled “The Idiot Culture.”

Bernstein, you might recall, was one half of the Woodward and Bernstein journalism team that broke the whole Watergate thing in The Washington Post in the 1970s – the political event that is perpetually trotted out as a luminous paragon of the American checks and balances system.

Bernstein’s article made a big impression on me – despite the fact that it didn’t go nearly far enough in its analysis or criticism. (Bernstein, now 66, still talks on the subject at various venues.)

The thrust of the piece, as the title suggests, was that the Western World is hooked on garbage entertainment. Throwaway icons and shallow creativity. TV shows that woo the voyeur in us. Paparazzi snapshots of “stars” who just don’t matter. Mind-numbing pseudo news that weighs us down rather than lifting us up.

The whole “idiot culture” thing could be a thesis or a book, not merely an article. Actually it has been: Take for example Neil Postman’s deeply analytical book “Amusing Ourselves To Death.” Postman and his ilk – including lauded socio-political commentator Professor Noam Chomsky – posit, correctly, that public discourse – the things we talk about and think about – have moved from the somewhat meaningful to the painfully absurd in the past half century or so.

The net result is that we have become junk-info addicts who are almost completely distracted from the important issues that affect us, those we love, and our fellow human beings around the globe. More to the point, to a large degree we are no longer even aware of what is important. We have been fed sugar-coated rat poison and dragged out beyond the margins of true culture to whither and die, spiritually and mentally.

The simple point is this: If we don’t focus our thoughts and energies on learning about the real and profound problems our planet is facing, and on taking actions to remedy them, then we’re closing the door on hope. Like anything worthwhile in life or history, saving the world (literally) will only be achieved through true understanding followed by concerted effort.

There are some vital things we need to do if we are to survive. We need to change the way the world is governed; we need to see that poverty is put to the sword; we need to end the suicidal environmental degradation of our planet; we need to assign anything with the word “nuclear” attached to it to the archives. And much more.

That’s a lot of thinking and a lot of work. We really need to dig for the truth and see that that truth is served. And we are not going to find truth on reality shows or in tabloid magazines; in the pitiful tirades of TV’s political talk show ego turds or the endless mire of nonsense that clutters much of the Internet. And no, we can’t even turn to traditional news sources or the likes of Carl Bernstein. We have to go to more pure information sources. More courageous ones. And we must find similarly concerned citizens. But first we must want to apply ourselves and not seek addiction-escapism by sinking into the couch and praying to the tube.

While Bernstein was right to rail against our toxic non-culture almost two decades ago, he has certainly been a beneficiary of it. His work on Watergate and subsequent lecturing on “serious journalism” have given him (and Woodward) a kind of demigod status. In a sense, they have accrued credibility in large part because of the contrast between themselves and the lower reaches of the idiot culture. But that contrast creates a false credibility: They are merely at the "high end" of that culture.

The fact is, they – and The Washington Post – are still part of the timid/privatized media industry and are hardly daring in what they do. Nixon was just a twisted creep who made for a good story. He was relatively easy to axe. But where are these pillars of pious journalism when it comes to things such as COINTELPRO, Gitmo, U.S. imperialism, the exploitation of Third World economies, the rape of the world ecosystem, the real and present danger posed by nuclear weapons and energy, the severe lack of democracy in America, or profoundly dissecting their own industry? It’s easy to make a bit of noise about Jerry Springer and Paris Hilton. Taking on Rupert Murdoch or transnational corporations in any serious way is another matter. And that takes a courage far greater.

Do we live in an idiot culture? Turn on your TV and flip through 20 or 30 channels and you tell me. Are we idiots? No, we are not. But the people with their hands on the levers want us to act like idiots. Passive consumers of their faux information and unnecessary products. So far, we've been pretty much playing into their hands.

But we can stop any time we decide we're ready to.

***********

Thanks for reading and check back soon. In the meantime, check out www.democracynow.org for some brave and honest journalism. Yes, you can handle the truth.

Adrian Zupp

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