Re: <nettime> on new states of affairs

[Dan Wang <danwang@mindspring.com>]

Hi Brian,

Brian, you are brave to be imagining these kinds of things. But I'm afraid
the time for this country to move in any such rational directions is over.

I was in China a few weeks ago, my first time out of the country since 9/11.
Looking back at the US from afar and through the eyes of foreign media, the
overwhelming perception is one of a country gone stagnant. Rummy was wrong;
it is not Europe that is old, but the US.

The systems for getting anything done in America are established,
entrenched, calcified. Not much radically risky can happen here anymore. The
systems are still open, poorly defined, and changing from month to month in
China--the risks being taken by individuals, groups, companies, and state
authorities are of a scale and degree unimaginable in our America. Of
course, stagnation is guaranteed failure, and worse potential disasters loom
from every direction, but in this country there can be no deliberation, no
possibility of "doing what needs to be done," whatever that may be. The
essential conservatism of the US runs deeper than most people can possibly
comprehend, and it doesnąt have anything to do with ideology.

Dan w.

> The only combination of forces that seems it
> may be able to bring together these relations
> is, at least symbolically, the model of Texas'
> state government, where there was a mixture
> of democratic lieutenant governor and then
> a republican governor. If today were the date
> of the elections, it is believed a Bush/Dean
> ticket is the only way out of current scenarios.
> Which would be transitional and lead to the
> full review of the .US constitution, to issues
> of free speech where right wing zealots can
> call citizens terrorists and say they should be
> shot which is tantamount to seditious behavior
> even organized, and citizens should have a
> basic protection from this and its prosecution.
> it is less than democratic, annihilating freedom.

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