[lbo-talk] Hey Mr. bitter expat

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Sep 22 06:57:48 PDT 2005


Marvin:
> quite apart from Iraq, which has really poured fuel on the fire, I wonder
if
> you would have the same widespread and visceral anti-Americanism today if
> Clinton were still in office or if you had an equally sophisticated
> Republican in the White House like Colin Powell or even a more presentable
> conservative like John McCain pursuing largely the same policies.

Almost certainly not - in fact I saw Clinton presidency as a welcomed reprieve after 12 years of Reagan-Bush nightmare. Visceral anti-americanism is also a misrepresentation of my views - I may be flipping out from time to time (which is mainly a byproduct of my depression) but I am trying to have a reasoned and realistic perspective on things and I generally succeed most of the time.

To answer Andy's question what I do like about this country, here is a list:

1. It is a rather open society with a plenty of space for newcomers, misfits and freaks. That may come at a price (alienation) and varies from place to place - but it generally compares favorably to Europe or Asia (which I also experienced first hand).

2. Equitable status of women - the US is on the top as far as the equal status of women is concerned, nobody but a handful of Scandinavian countries come even close. It does not mean that sexism is absent - it is not and that it varies considerably from place to place - but generally speaking women in this country have a much greater status and personal freedom than those elsewhere. I realized that when my ex was working as a union organizer (UNITE) of Eastern European immigrants mainly women - most of whom preferred to stay here and work menial jobs than going back to their old countries because as one of these women put it "she did not want anyone tell her how to dress or spend her money with whom to sleep and where to go." Sexism is particularly bad in Eastern Europe - especially in reaction to socialism - but Western Europe is not much better.

3. Good, open and rationally organized higher education system - by comparison, the European academe is a feudal fiefdom. The primary and secondary education generally sucks in comparison to Europe - but that is due mainly to political-economic and socio-demographic factors (i.e. negative influence of the out-of-school environment than poor quality of instruction) - and of course varies considerably from place to place.

4. A relatively high level of rational organization of the economy - manifested inter alia in a fairly open recruitment and promotion process, effectiveness evaluation and organizations of tasks. Again this not to say that nepotism cronyism and managerial idiocy cum despotism are absent - but that they are generally lower comparing to many other places.

5. A relatively high level of separation of religion and state - this may come as surprise given the obnoxious religious infestation of a great chunk of the US population - but despite the wide spread of religious superstition among the populace, the institutions - public and private - are generally well insulated from it. This is not the case of many even fairly developed countries, e.g. Ireland or Poland or for that matter Germany which has a state sanctioned church tax. France may appear secular, but that is mainly due to the secular nature of French population. I wonder if the French institutions could maintain its secular character if its population was infested with religiosity to the degree that the US population is (probably yes, due to its republican traditions, but I just wonder).

I think the US generally scores higher than most other countries on these five factors (again, considerable internal variation notwithstanding). Then, there are other factor where the US scores OK - better than many other places, albeit not as good as some other. These include general standards of living - higher than in most countries, even if not as high as in Western Europe or -I imagine - Japan. Another one is health care - ridiculously overpriced and with criminally inequitable access - but otherwise of excellent quality - albeit comparable to that in other developed countries where it is not so ridiculously overpriced and more accessible.

These are the good sides of the US that I can think of off the top of my head. The bad thing is that they will disappear when the Bush gang and its fascist backers (who are plenty) have their way.

Wojtek



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