The Americans however, perhaps addled by a too firm belief in the sort of foolishness found in corporate 'mission statments', popular culture and a religous faith in our metallic death tech (and the god who reportedly guides the hand holding the laser targeting device) seem to believe that stick and stick will not only suppress but somehow be accepted by the oppressed as good and right. As, in a word, liberation.
Were the Romans this stupid about human nature? Were the Brits? ----------------------------------------------------
(Hi Dwayne!)
I know you're waxing rhetorically but as you know the modern Empire of the Spectacle works under entirely different rules than those of yore. It is amazing that for all the rhetoric of the "Global Village" and being so much more interconnected, there is still so little comprehension of what it means to live in the slums of Baghdad or any other Third World slum (see below). There has been a disccussion on the list recently about American cultural blindness which ties into what is stated above. M. Pugliese forwarded a link to a FrontPage Mag debate regarding Islam/Fundamentalism that includes this question: "Why is it difficult to imagine a stand-up comedy club, like on BET comedy, in an Arab Muslim society, with an Arab Muslim woman on stage cracking “inappropriate” jokes and shocking people -- and everyone in the audience is roaring with laughter? Why is this scenario difficult to picture? And what does this mean?" I realize that FrontPage is very fringe but I think this attitude is present in many liberals also. I have been calling it the "cereal freedom" meme for a few years and was happily suprised to see it discussed on this list a while back. Anyhow, the crux of is that "Democracy" = "Freedom" = "Many types of sugary cereals in the supermarket". I'm sure everyone on the list sees how this facile logic morphs into the current situation in Iraq and the major media coverage of it (as D. Perrin aptly termed "insane").
Regarding slums, Mike Davis has a new article at the New Left Review website called Planet Of Slums http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR26001.shtml I realize that he has his detractors but he makes some interesting points about the rise of not only Islamic Fundamentalism but also Pentacostalism in South America. It's also worthwhile for the stats.: "...many readers will be surprised by the un’s counter-experiential finding that only 19.6 per cent of urban Mexicans live in slums. Yet, even with this restrictive definition, Slums estimates that there were at least 921 million slum-dwellers in 2001: nearly equal to the population of the world when the young Engels first ventured onto the mean streets of Manchester. "
Cheers, Greg L.
-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20040408/a4ff38ec/attachment.htm>