[lbo-talk] white Americans think Kanye West is wrong

[Carl Remick]

>From: "Charles Brown" <cbrown at michiganlegal.org>
>
>I just feel so fucking out of place here - even among the seemingly
>like-minded people - that it is not even funny.
>
>Wojtek
>
>I feel you , Wojtek. My own frustration with America is that in my youth
>there was great movement to make things better. Whatever the shortcomings 
>of
>the "60's", it represented sincere desire, sacrifice and effort by masses 
>to
>end racism, poverty, war, general social ills. Idealism ( in the good
>utopian sense) to change things for the better was strong. Reaganism
>represented an incredible ( for me) betrayal of this idealism. It was like
>America took back the effort it had just made to make itself better. It's
>generosity and humanism lost out completely to its smallminded, 
>selfishness.
>It's bad side crushed its good side.

Exactly.  The sixties may have come up short in developing the right 
answers, but at least a lot more people then were asking the right questions 
about what's wrong with capitalism.  Now that's virtually all gone, and 
what's left is a nightmarish combination of religiosity, greed and 
militarism, a glorification of ignorance and power.


>Perhaps one advantage I have over you as a native is that I am comfortable
>and familiar with everyday people and happenings.

I can't say I even have that anymore.  I find it unsettling working with 
teams of people in an office setting these days.  When I started in the 
corporate world 30 years ago, there was greater genuine camaraderie among 
office workers and more overt cynicism about the values of the business 
world.  The yuppification of the workplace and endless outsourcing changed 
all that -- creating intense mutual distrust among surviving staffers along 
with an unquestioning Stakhanovite commitment to corporate goals.

You don't have to be an alien to feel 100% alienated in 21st century 
America.

Carl