God, Positive Paranoia and 9/11 was Re: [lbo-talk] More opiate for the people and 9/11 goes mainstream

Michael McIntyre mcintyremichael at mac.com
Thu Sep 14 05:09:54 PDT 2006


Let's not be unfair to peasants. Remember Skocpol: when the peasants stop being revolutionary, the revolution stops. (Or Paige, or Wolf, or any number of others). Suburban Americans never start being revolutionary. Score one for the peasants. Michael McIntyre

On Sep 14, 2006, at 1:03 AM, joanna wrote:


> Well, I think Lennon had it right:
>
> Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
> And you think you're so clever and class less and free
> But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
>
> The U.S. consists mostly of suburban peasants. They may have the hi-
> tech gadgets, but basically they think (or not) like peasants.
>
> The positive paranoia of peasants normally revolves around the
> specialness of the farmer who must curry favor with a host of
> forces --like the weather, locusts, tax collectors, and lthe well
> being of livestock-- in order to survive.
>
> The positive paranoia of U.S. citizens revolves around their
> specialness in a country whose imperial character is at best dimly
> perceived while surviving the shifting tides of labor markets and
> shrinking social nets.
>
> Because of extreme social isolation and relentless brain-washing,
> most Americans have absolutely no understanding of history and can
> only visualize grand forces that involve "God" mixed with some
> flavor of sentimental and largely meaningless heroism. I think the
> word empire is meaningless to them. It's just a grand word.
>
>
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