Re: <nettime> The Ministry of Disinformation

[Bill Spornitz <spornitz@mts.net>]

Randall said:

The frightening thing about all this, is the gullibility of the American people. They buy it. They believe him. They are going to vote for him and he may very well win this election and we are going to have four more 
years of a plot that seems to know no end to its thickening. 

I think to myself:

I'm not sure it's the gullibility factor; That would indicate a population that acted based on what it considered to be true through thought, or discourse, or reflection .

I think there's a basic rule in the US that says *You play your part, you say the right things, and you can be one of us, the wonderous US of A, home of the brave, sharing in all those brave and wonderful things we do, protected by our might, etc*... 

It sidesteps all this talk of reality-based and faith-based... it's not the facts that drive them, it's the word of the leader of their section of the club... 

The tragic reality of the WTC attacks scared these people to their feeble cores; just the fact that one attack in one city can be automagically owned and feared by so many millions of non-participants scattered across so many millions of square kilometers is instructive - a view into their immature sense of self and their place in the world.


Questioning yourself makes you feel uncomfortable. Believing in yourself gives confidence, further believing in some idea like * the creator of the universe is on our side and talking to our leader directly* or * we are the greatest nation in the history of the species * both reassures and absolves any individual of responsibility, which can be another uncomfortable sensation.

If they vote him back in, it's a clear message to the rest of us. Kind of like if somebody at work rants about *The Other* a lot at lunch, then one day gets reprimanded for throwing his keyboard at his cube wall because he loses his temper... it's a sign that that guy can't be trusted, he's a loose cannon, and that those in charge should work to safely remove him from the operation before he can do some real damage...

With the rise of China and India as economic powers, the US standard of living hasn't much future given their inability to learn and grow. All other nations should be working to indemnify themselves from the effects of this shift, particularly if United States citizens take the amazing step of re-electing this fellow...

just a wandering thought for this rainy lunchtime

-b


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net