|
Could you imagine an American during World War II
driving a Hummer? Could you imagine, in 1944, any
state in the Union electing a Governor who not only
drove such an affront to the war effort, but was himself
responsible for its commercial distribution? Of course
not. I know it sounds trite, but during World War
II, Americans all pitched in. They used rations, they
participated in dim-outs, they planted victory gardens,
they walked. Yes, they even resorted to public transportation.
During that war, people seem to have had some concept
of personal responsibility, of the fact that they
would need to sacrifice if America were to survive.
In order to preserve their freedom, they would have
to give up some of their luxuries. Today, we think
of luxuries as freedom.
The word freedom has two definitions. Don’t
worry; I’m not going to quote Webster’s.
I’ll make up my own (or just paraphrase). One
(the “American” definition) is a right
and responsibility to control your own actions without
external restriction. This is the form of freedom
granted by the United States constitution. The other
is an exemption from an obligation, duty or rule (or
the “Fuck you, I’m free,” definition).
At some point between 1945 and the energy crisis of
the late ‘70s, Americans ceased to define freedom
the way the Bill of Rights did, and began to define
it the way car commercials did — “Screw
you, I can do whatever I want, and if I want to fund
terrorism, take up two lanes, pollute, and make everyone
wait two hours while I fill up in the morning, too
bad, Pal! I’m free!” Freedom began to
mean “fuck you.”
Something happened between the end of World War II
in 1945 and the energy crisis in 1978 (during which
a revolution would have broken out if Americans were
asked to unplug their toaster ovens) that changed
America’s idea of what freedom really means.
But what was it? Baby boomers? Cars? Those awful Elvis
Presley musicals? It’s always popular to blame
Nixon… I, myself, tend to believe that it was
the Cold War that most horribly warped America’s
idea of what freedom means. We are still so hung up
about Communism that we think it’s unpatriotic
to even imply that one should stop consuming—even
if it could cripple our enemies.
The Cold War was never made to be about Communism
vs. Democracy (or at least by Reagan’s day it
wasn’t). It was about Communism vs. Capitalism.
Had we made it about Communism vs. Democracy, perhaps
people would have learned to value their civil liberties
more than the blue light special or a free Pontiac
from the Oprah show. But we didn’t. So today
we celebrate that the former Soviet Union is “Taking
the lead in space advertising” without giving
a second thought to their “on again, off again”
relationship with Democracy. “Who cares if they
can vote? Even the cosmonauts get to see Ford’s
new rollout!”
Communism was presented to Americans very, very simplistically:
Government ownership of business, and social engineering.
The true evil of Communism — totalitarianism
— was completely overlooked, perhaps because
it so closely resembled fascism. The only freedom
that was valued in the propaganda war against Communism
was the freedom to consume. After all, it’s
called the land of opportunity, not the land of political
representation!
With this mindset, one gets the idea that an afternoon
at Neiman Marcus is the best line of defense when
it comes to our freedom. Truly, has there ever been
a lower moment in the any Presidency than when, just
days after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush was asked
what Americans could do to help? His answer: Shop
til you drop! And don’t forget to “Get
down to Disney World in Florida.” Even to the
President, freedom cannot be won; it can only be bought.
Either that, or he was just afraid that if he asked
something from voters for this war, they wouldn’t
be so passive when it came time to hit Iraq, and he
figured he could plug his brother’s swing state
while he was at it. But that would be unthinkably
crass and horrific, so we’ll just pretend it
was only stupid.
While the Cold War in general kept America unendingly
to have all 31 flavors at their disposal, this still
does not explain how it instilled in our collective
psyche disdain for all what is most great about Democracy:
the freedom to disagree with authority. To truly warp
the American mind in the way that it has over the
last sixty five years, we had to convince ourselves
that exercising the most American of liberties was
actually un-American. This idea that dissent is unpatriotic
(if we define America by the civil liberties granted
in the Constitution,) is the most un-American thought
that one could harbor. We had to be frightened into
thinking that, and there’s a reason that the
Cold War’s nasty little brother was called the
“Red Scare.”
One needs look no farther into the origins of this
thought (or rather, cease-and-desist order on free
thought) than the McCarthy era. The Red Scare taught
us that anyone who ever favored a social program,
questioned war, or thought that our government might
have been wrong about anything could very well be
a Communist. In short, it scared Americans into valuing
the real evil of Communism—totalitarianism,
while rejecting the very philosophy that defined America.
Many in this country still somehow buy into the fact
that if you disagree with the United States government,
one can (and should) be labeled a Communist. Just
read through the comments on a week’s worth
of Raw Story columns; you’ll see that there
are people out there who, passé as the term
may now be, label anyone who’s ever questioned
this President a yoga-doin’ “Commie.”
And these are people with a skill level at least great
enough to muster use of a computer.
After 9/11, the Bush Administration sent out two
messages loud and clear: 1) Don’t question us,
or you’re a terrorist; and 2) Spend, spend,
spend! These would have gotten a President impeached
(or worse) in 1945. Thanks to the pioneering work
of Joe McCarthy, however, these ludicrous and self-defeating
war cries seemed down right patriotic. And patriotism
is, remember, “The last refuge of scoundrels.”
The Cold War, of course, was not the only thing to
drastically change our idea of what America was over
the last half of the 20th century. There are other
things to consider, too. I just don’t think
that any are so significant in and of themselves to
be considered the biggest reason we decided to give
our country the finger while simultaneously putting
our flag “under God.”
The rise of the car culture seems like an obvious
answer, if we’re using the Hummer as our only
example. After all, a Hummer doesn’t just say
“Fuck you”. It also says, “Conspicuous
consumption,” “My car could beat up your
car,” “Don’t I look cool?”
and “This may be a deathtrap, but I feel safer.”
Today, any mention of a switch to hybrid automobiles
is met with contempt by the elected officials most
actively portraying themselves as the ones who’ll
keep you safe. If just one in six cars on the road
were hybrids, we wouldn’t even need Middle East
oil, anymore, but that doesn’t seem to matter
to our President as much as getting everyone to agree
that invading Iraq made us all safer.
Why should they make us feel bad by telling us that
our gas-guzzlers are funding terror when it was so
much easier for the government to lie about pre-demonized
“Bad guys”—drug dealers (no connection
to al Qaeda) and Saddam Hussein (also no connection)?
General laziness, and idyll in the glow of much bread
and circuses, also deserve a lot of the blame. People
don’t care, because it doesn’t affect
their daily life. Why should they help the war in
terror? It’s not like they’re targets,
right? It explains the Hummers, but not the bumper
stickers.
Fuel thirst is also only one sign of America’s
unwillingness to help in the war effort. After racking
up trillions in debt, we’ve actually cut taxes
in a time of war. Do we really believe that this “tax
cut” means we’ll never have to pay this
debt off? Of course, this is just our “war President’s”
way of exploiting America’s thirst for instant
gratification. He can “cut” taxes and
generate an enormous amount of debt that someone else
will eventually have the unpopular duty of paying
off. It’s rather like giving someone a credit
card, in their name, and calling it a gift card with
no limit. We’ll be sorry when the bill comes,
but the bearer will be long gone.
The Baby Boom generation is also a popular target
for those who feel America’s trip in the hand
basket is just about over. But one can’t say,
with certainty, that they were not simply a product
of their times. In fact, it looks to me like they
were a lot more active at one point, even if it was
for selfish reasons (nothing really hit the fan, we
young-ins are told, until the college deferments were
lifted).
The younger generation gets much of the blame, as
well, but their problem seems to be one of apathy.
Also, they can’t afford a Hummer yet, so we
really can’t tell.
In the mean time, we have plenty of other evidence
that their parents were totally blown over by Communist
paranoia. Even if we ignore the war (as most of us
have), there is still plenty of other evidence that
most older Americans value only the freedom to Supersize.
Otherwise good human beings have consistently supported
morally reprehensible and fiscally unsound policies
that Gore Vidal best summed up as, “Socialism
for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.”
Since most Communist governments were the result of
an uprising of the poor, it was determined by many
that any government aid to the poor was Communist
in nature. “Universal Healthcare? Betty, go
get me one of them bumper stickers where Clinton is
spelled with a Commie sickle!”
This country actively moves wealth from the poor
to the rich through taxation. Ask not what your country
can buy for you, but what you can buy for your country!
And yet the poor somehow support this. It is Communist,
you see, for the government to take from the rich
and give to the poor (even in instances when that
keeps the economy moving), but it is somehow Capitalist
for the government to transfer wealth from the poor
to the rich.
Why? Because unlike a Communist country, in America,
we naively believe that anyone who works hard can
one day be filthy stinking rich. And then you can
also profit from the pain and suffering of the poor!
Only through a long-lasting and at this point completely
irrational fear of Communism could this possibly have
been achieved. It’s a form of philosophical
hypocrisy I like to call Communophobia! Most just
call it stupidity.
|
|
