Why Has It Been So For So Long ?

Before I'd even arrived on these shores I'd become puzzled about an aspect of life in the USA. Having chatted to several Americans online, I'd noticed a recurring theme: problems arising from lack of universal health care. One person with whom I chatted regularly had had their own small construction business, a home and small amount of land adjacent. Cancer struck. The insurance wasn't sufficient to cover all expenses, first for removal of one eye, then one kidney. Home, land and business had to be sold, in favour of living in a rented trailer, on whatever money odd jobs would bring in. How, I wondered, had a country with such glitteringly gleaming PR: Land of the Free, American Dream, Leader of the Free World, Greatest Country in the World....etc. come to this? Why hadn't the people risen up to object? Why hadn't they voted out the bums who had allowed this state of affairs to continue? My online friend was just one of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands in the same situation.

That was back in 2001/2. Having lived in the USA since 2004 I still found no sure answer, other than making the assumption that a general apathy about the fate of their fellow-men had brought about the status quo here. A couple of pieces appearing at Salon recently has thrown some light on the matter:

Paul Nevins : Why Are Americans So Docile?

After reciting details of the current situation he asks:

So how does one explain the deafening silence from the legion of unemployed, underemployed and impoverished Americans who, by virtue of their status and their enforced leisure, surely now have the time to take to the streets, to organize politically and to make their voices heard ? Why, given the emergence of what former Nixon political strategist Kevin Phillips has described as the "new indentured servitude," has the growth of plutocracy in been largely met with silence or grudging acquiescence in contemporary American culture?

A good comment from one al loomis which I'll copy here~ Mr loomis does a kd lang - uses no capitals, so I shall leave his comment in that mode :

..........americans are docile for several reasons: there is no need for political education in a nation where 535 people have almost all the power to direct national affairs. knowing nothing of practical politics, they ascribe god-like power to the people who fight their way into office, and can't imagine resisting them. americans have no experience or training in creating citizen initiative in the federal sphere. so they remain isolated and conscious of their impotence to change things acting alone.

perhaps most important, they grow up in a society that is awash in self-congratulation. schools and media daily inculcate the notion that america is as good as it gets, and any point of apparent inadequacy is the result of personal failure, not social. when all else fails, americans are reminded that life at the top is so good that poverty at the bottom is acceptable, that losers deserve their fate. the american dream remains that of medieval society: to escape the lower class, to join the elite.

so alienation and shame keep them quiet, cowering alone and hoping no one will notice when they have to start dining behind restaurants in the dumptster.

al loomis
September 30, 2011 06:20 PM

Mr loomis later went on to expand on the matter himself in
Why Not Democracy
Excerpt:

i often wonder at the passivity of the american electorate, they watch the nation lurch into periodic convulsions, putting millions out of work and out of their homes, and they don't say, "let's stop this." why not?

they watch the nation attack other nations for reasons that are bad to begin with, and turn out to be utterly false as well, and they do nothing. trillions wasted on war, hundreds of thousands of foreigners taught to hate america, and the american electorate just watches, and does nothing. why?
.......................................
concentrating power created a weak point of the nation. a few hundred politicians could be bought and controlled by personal and corporate wealth, so that the application of a trivial part of the nation's wealth to the owning of congress resulted in a nation that, no matter how it voted, any party or independent, the result was under the sway of money.

the founding fathers aimed for stability, got inflexibility, and are continually one accident away from ruining the nation, long after they are dead and their slaves freed.

at the same time, there is a psychological aspect to the 'why' problem. it's simply this: a child raised in a wheel chair will never be a good runner. indeed, if every child is raised in a wheel chair, even the prospect of walking will inspire panic and flight, rather as though someone suggested flapping your arms as you step out a high window. in politics, americans are raised in a legal wheelchair. they do not participate in the management of the nation. they are told it's too hard for them.

so the answer to 'why' is simple: americans have no legal machinery to direct the state, and they do not have the character to create the machinery. like the wildebeest they mimic, when asked: "why don't you turn together on the political hyena pack, and stamp them into the ground?"

the answer is, "we always have run away, it's our nature."

And a comment from old new lefty, with an optimistic ending:

Unfortunately, part of the American disease has to go back to the Pilgrims. The idea of America as God's gift, the black and white standards of morality, and the outright, pure, unadulterated materialism of the USA all combine to make the rest of the world scratch its head and wonder how so many passive morons could be produced on a particularly large part of the North American continent.

But these very qualities also have properties much like a computer dip switch. Once it's switched into the "on" position, the force becomes a wave. I believe that the era of American passivity is quickly coming to an end, very quickly.

The fervent hope is that passivity IS now coming to an end. The efforts of the Occupiers of Wall Street, and similar protests popping up around the country could well be the avant garde of a massive turn around in public attitude.