A lot has been written since the so-called teabaggers arrived in Washington.
But if you're a Canadian, I think you only need to know the following:
The United States is now a Banana Republic.
The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.
The teabaggers are searching for the American dream.
For the first time in American history, then, social mobility has been replaced with class struggle. Europeans have always been mystified that poor people in this country don't rise up and throw potatoes at Donald Trump – instead, they make him a reality TV star. But that's because everyone here us sure they are going to be rich like him someday, too. Maybe tomorrow.
Which like Elvis, has left the building.
If the news outlets were actually reporting, they would tell us the honest and awful truth: the United States is a post-industrial empire in decline, like England or Belgium or worse (is there worse?). There is no next. We are at next.
But because they're not too bright.
These uninformed lost souls vehemently shout for "small government" and "less government handouts," but ask them if they'd like to lose their Social Security and Medicare and they smile and say, "Oh no, that stuff I like!" They don't know what the hell they want, yet that hasn't stopped them from being really, really angry anyway.
They're still looking for it.
In the 1950s...
So they're bound to be disappointed.
And the day they realize that they've been manipulated by the REAL elites.
Will be the day the second American revolution starts.
God
The same fate is happening in CAnada. Tea-baggers have arrived in Canada; they're called the Timmy Horton's crowd. Amazing how easy they are to manipulate. That's the frightening thing.
ReplyDeleteFascism is the new order of the US and will be in Canada shortly enough unless we all wise up.
The BBC article got it exactly right: the US is "a post-industrial empire in decline" and it's a truth that most people here don't want to face, so they join movements like the Tea Party to try to "recapture" some of the old "glory" that the U.S. once had.
ReplyDeleteThe Tea Party is the biggest and best example of astroturfing in the U.S. (though the Wikipedia article that I link to doesn't mention it). The Koch brothers must be proud of themselves, and it still boggles my mind that so many people here vote against their own interests to support the corporations and the people that run them. But then I remember that they think they'll be rich too, which again the BBC article mentions.
We truly have become the Nation of Stupid.
hi ck...when I was in university I was always warning about the rise of fascism. None of my friends ever believed me, the fools. And now I can't believe it either. :)
ReplyDeleteBut when societies go into decline, and ignorance replaces reason, anything is possible...
hi Dubuque Dave...I have a theory about the United States and Canada. Both countries are so large, it's hard to see the big picture. But the fact is North America is declining, and as you mention some are trying to reclaim the glory days. And since you can't just wish those days back they are bitter and angry. Of course, decline doesn't mean the end.With google, apple, Stanford, some of the best scientists in the world, the U.S. is still a great nation. But only the truth will set us free, and incoherent anger could take us to a very dark place...
ReplyDelete