Zizek

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>But Zizek is on to something when he realises that people could find out all
>the facts if they wanted to and the question is why it makes no difference.
>The US has much greater freedom of information and speech than the UK where
>I am and US people are much more used to using these freedoms. But it
>doesn't make any difference in the end. The US state doesn't stomp all over
>the rest of the world satisfying the self-interest of its leading classes
>DESPITE the citizens of the republic it does it BECAUSE of them, to keep
>them happy, clappy and sated, to give them what they want. They like it.
>Lots of goodies and toys and fun but also some nasty all evil enemies to
>feel satisfyingly threatened by and then superior to. And that is what the
>wars on latin and south america gave them, the war on terrorism AND the
>paranoid fantasies about world government that feed the militiamen AND the
>arguments of Chomsky and the 'anarchist' left. It is all a very satisfying
>and very American and even (though it may sound odd with reference to
>Chomsky) Protestant eschatological manichean and individualist fantasy. On
>this list, the long and unnecessary discussion about whether the US is
>fascist or not was part of the same thing.
>
>Isn't this clear now? Isn't this obvious since September? How else can it be
>that so many in the US want to see policies that will NOT defeat terrorism
>and will NOT make the world a safer place? Why else does the US go about the
>world winding people up (as the CNN Poll data posted here suggested) and
>then make films fantasising about all the people that want to hurt America?

So, reading Zizek basically leads you to the conclusion that it is 
not the American power elite but American commoners who love to 
"stomp all over the rest of the world"?  Why then do the American 
policy elite go to such great lengths to hide information from _even 
those Americans who make active efforts to seek it, using FOIA suits 
and the like_, even about US government actions taken many decades 
ago in the good old days of the Cold War and before it?  Why do the 
owners of the media sanitize the coverage of war by excluding images 
and information of enemy casualties (especially civilian casualties), 
using such euphemisms as collateral damage, and so on?  Why not show 
all the consequences of US state terrors, past and present, if 
Americans are truly prepared to accept them as necessary costs for 
their happiness?

The truth is that the American policy elite do not trust the American 
masses to support them in all actions necessary for the maintenance 
of imperial power.  American elite secrecy and hypocrisy is, in a 
sense, a tribute to the latent capacity for democracy and solidarity 
with others that ordinary Americans do possess.

Moreover, the Empire is not good for its subjects, whether they are 
abroad or _at home_.  The Empire can be only maintained by many 
sacrifices of its own working-class subjects at home: sacrifices of 
lives of imperial soldiers; sacrifices due to resources wasted on 
warfare rather than devoted to welfare; and sacrifices of souls 
caused by repressions of historical memories.
-- 
Yoshie

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