Agitprop: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Propaganda

Stay out of Malibu, Polanski

The tag line of an LA Times article titled "Polanski arrest draws cheers and jeers in Europe" reads:

Those in the arts community see the film director as a hounded hero whose jailing reflects America's dark side. Others see the arrest and Switzerland's cooperation in the sting as justice overdue.

We are the country who disintegrates children on a weekly basis with predator drones. We torture. We have the highest prison population in the world thanks in part to incarcerating non-violent offenders. But wanting to try a guy who druged and raped a 13 year old girl 30 years ago shows our dark side?

What the fuck are you talking about?!?

Seriously...people in the arts community...if you are suddenly frightened by the American ethos then you clearly have been trapped in the celluloid you produce for a living. There's no such thing as a get out of jail free card for artists - only politicians and white-collar executives are privy to that golden ticket.

See also: Rape-Rape.

People Get Ready

So Much For A Dialogue

The mother-in-law unit was in town for a few days visiting us and seeing what she could do to help during the course of my illness. She's relatively harmless so long as you agree with her world viewpoint. She and her husband are HUGE Obama fans ("He's our only hope."). I can't remember how we got to this point in the conversation and I'm unfortunately don't remember her exact phrasing, but we were discussing politics and the state of the nation. She was curious what my wife and I thought, however she didn't want to hear anything negative about Obama. That was pretty much a conversation ender and we just let her prattle on whenever she felt like it and we just nodded our heads.

Oh well.

Collectivist Stooges Against Collectivism

A friend of mine hypothesizes our national weirdness is a throwback to our nation's Puritan roots. At the time we were sunning ourselves out by the above ground, talking about the bizarre (to me) prohibition on the handful of words kids and people being broadcasted can't say, but our national weirdness also accounts for a lot of other things, doesn't it?

The word Socialism has all but become one of these prohibited words. It is spoken as invective and defended against as a deep personal affront. (Agi's post and an ensuing comment from Snave grazed the topic yesterday.)

We hold personal responsibility as one of our greatest ideals. We run around this place crashing into one another like millions of individual sovereign isolationists. The sense we seem to have of another of our high ideals, equality, oddly manifests itself in anger directed at union workers for their ability to collectively extract more than their fair share(?!) out of the system.

Another article I read yesterday [H/T: Kung Fu Monkey] offers an explanation for this enmity toward collectivism. A reliance on "on knee-jerk blind faith" and anti-state sentiment born out of theological tradition:

[Italics in original.] The traditional idea of ancient churches (Orthodox and Roman Catholic) before the Reformation was a community of faith built around liturgical practices that could not be celebrated alone. It "took a village" to get saved, so to speak. Salvation was found in one’s relationship with one’s community and religious institutions closely tied to the well being of the state. Protestants said that all one needs is a “personal relationship with Jesus” and one’s personal interpretation of the Bible. This idea cut out the priest, tradition, bishop and hierarchy. It also gradually cut out the sense of obligation to—and connectedness with—one’s community.

[Killing the Buddha: It’s the Theology, Stupid <== Read the whole thing. It's short!]

But WE DON'T REJECT COLLECTIVISM. Us wage serfs live and breathe it every day. What is a company, after all, if not a group (tens, 100s, 1000s) of people working collectively toward a common goal?

So That the Boss Man Can Profit is kind of a fucked up goal, but there you have it.

Worker, you are not a rugged individual. You're hardly a person. You, (and I,) are tools.