nettime: American Millenium: The Rich and The Cool

["Ivo Skoric" <iskoric@igc.apc.org> (by way of mf@MediaFilter.org (MediaFilter))]

The Rich and The Cool

Just inaugurated Bulgarian president announced preparations
to celebrate birthday of North Korean "great leader", comrade
Kim Jong Il (who was referred to as to "dear leader", until his
father, the former "great leader", whose larger-than-life statues
dot North Korean cities and countryside, Kim Il Sung died).

In North Korea they plan to spend an undisclosed amount of
money on the letter carrying relay.  Youth from all parts of the
country will run with letters of best wishes for Kim's birthday
to form a relay that would eventually end up in Pyongyang in
a gala event on some sport stadium.  Pretty much the same
scenario as it was in Yugoslavia during Tito's reign.  Actually,
since Tito failed to leave a heir to his monarchy, the relay
continued after his death, but it was delivered to his grave,
which made it a spooky spectacle for my generation.

Meanwhile in the U.S. around $40 millions is spent to
inaugurate a sitting president, to ensure citizens that
transition of power is peaceful.  If there would be no
inauguration, people might believe that Clinton feels miserably
about his re-election and that he is re-assuming his duties
reluctantly, kind of he'd rather go play golf.  So, he has to
smile to gathered dues-paying crowd and to TV cameras so
everybody is assured that he is happy to be a president, even
after the four years of his well-published misery in the White
House.  Did anybody try to figure it out how better could we
spend that money instead to feed those who are already full?
Does anybody realize how much money in the U.S. is spent on
politics - running big party bureaucracies day-to-day,
congressional, senatorial, gubernatorial, presidential
campaigns, incessant litigations (which would not be there if
the person is not a politician), legions of P.R. consultants,
lobbyists and their assistants, staff for each politician, the
inauguration being just a tip of an iceberg?  We are well into
billions here.  But, amusingly, nobody among politicians came
out with idea to cut THAT.

Smirk.

This is one very expensive democracy.  So, at least, do we get
that money's worth?  Around the inauguration time CNN came
up with a poll showing that people do not really believe the
economy would get any better by the year 2000, but they
expect racial relations and education to improve.  The next
report was about two adventurers, a sponsored guy who
trekked to the South Pole and a millionaire balloonist.

One would expect that American politicians would be eager to
take the advantage of the racial divide - to exploit the latent
mistrust between the races, as their European peers
constantly stir the ethnic tensions between their various
ethnic constituencies - to take the public eye of the real
issues.  That way they could spend their time in office
tinkering how to solve problems that they created themselves,
which is usually easier than tackling the problems that came
up unannounced, so they could appear as heroes over and
over again, without actually doing anything.

Really, what on Earth would they do if the racial relations and
education improve?  As long as there is a fear of black teens,
conservative politicians can sell the police state to the masses.
As long as the education is bad for the poor, they would not
understand, or at least not care to understand, that they live
in a country with the largest differences between the rich and
the poor in the developed world a gap that continues to widen,
rapidly engulfing its ever shrinking middle class.  As long as
racial tensions are kept up and education is weak, the
politicians should have an easy time doing the job for which
they are paid: coming up with "important" legislation to
protect the ruling class (that 1 percent that owns 20 percent).
Improving the racial relations and education, while NOT
improving economy, spells a disaster for the regime.

Fortunately, Americans are innate gamblers, not afraid to
change or try something new.  The Constitution guarantees
life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to virtually anybody who
sets his or hers foot on the U.S. soil.  Which means exactly
that - no less and no more than that.  You can say what you
want and do what you want, as long as you don't infringe on
the life or liberty of others, and if you fall on the street the
EMS will pick you up and get you out the same day, and if
you fail in your "pursuit of happiness", well, that's life.  It is
not the happiness that's guaranteed, it is the pursuit.  In the
U.S. everything comes with the fine-print on the back, and
that fine-print by default contains more important information
than the bold, flashy letters on the front.

Even now, with all this talks against immigration, and with
the outrageous Proposition 187, America is a friendlier
country to immigrants than any European power.  However,
with the economic crisis which begun as a result of exorbitant
investments in weapons of mass destruction, needed to keep
an upper hand during the cold war era, suddenly going sour -
like a huge bad debt - following the cold war era's demise, the
American Dream survived a huge blow: suddenly the well
hidden gap between the wealthy and have-nots became naked
and obvious.

In the first half of this century America amassed enormous
wealth - some by virtue of its own natural resources
(Europeans depleted theirs centuries ago), some by virtue of
cheap immigrant labor (which escaped European constant
ethnic persecution), some by virtue of accruing huge profits
and not any damage during the both world wars.  This all
made possible for the U.S. to create a sedated socialist utopia
for its people in fifties and sixties: yes, there was a nuclear
scare and a racial scare, but before the Vietnam, the staple of
every politicians power was that majority of people were
actually satiated - perhaps for the first (an maybe the last)
time in human history almost everybody could have its own
house, its own car and ever expanding cornucopia of house
appliances and gadgets.  No other country was ever as rich as
to be able to extend as large credit to its citizens.  Did
anybody notice how there is a gadget for every single task your
mind can come up with?  And if there isn't, perhaps the
patent is still pending.

Today, America is not that rich any more.  Instead it is
plagued by the greatest debt in human history.  The
contagious disease of owing money spreads through all
classes.  The poorest segment of society is always the most
vulnerable to any economic distress.  Recently, however, this
segment is actually GROWING, nibbling well into the lower
portions of sacred American middle class.  Still, there are
people like Mike Ovitz, who collect millions of dollars in
severance pay after they are fired for not doing their job right.
Most mortals are just fired and they are back on the street
facing the rent, the accrued debt, the shrinking job market,
the cut-off social services.  And if they get a job it is barely to
cover the essentials.  While if Mike kept his job he could earn
in a year what most of families don't earn in three
generations.  Now, what could Mike do that is so much more
important, so much better, so much more worth, to get paid
so much money?

If ordinary people are still sedated by trash wealth like they
were 30 years ago, nobody would ask that question: it was
acceptable that Hollywood movers and shakers earn enormous
money: it was an object of desire - what would housewives in
suburbia talk about if there were no affairs like this?
Hollywood gurus have to be well paid off, since they hold such
a sway over public opinion through their influence in movies
(which largely form the undereducated public opinion in the
U.S.): the rest of the ruling class knows that, so they share
their wealth with the Hollywood top executives.  But now, the
times are different: it just doesn't seem fair that somebody
collects so much money while so many other people who are
neither dumber, nor less talented live in poverty.  What would
Mike do now?  Why would he do anything?  With that kind of
severance pay he could live the rest of his life without earning
a dime.  But no: he will seek and get another job where he
would earn several millions a year.  The greed that plagues his
class is insatiable.  There is no amount of money that can
satisfy it.  It is probably the only thing that makes them
happy.

Isn't Mike afraid that some day somebody would sink his
yacht?  Or break in his house and take his small intestines
out?  Of course he is.  That's why, I bet, he'd agree with more
police in the streets, anytime.  And the yacht is probably well
insured, so he'd actually make money if you'd blow it up.  In
the event of a widespread systemic discontent police and
insurance policy would not be of much help, nevertheless.  So,
the people must be lead to look the other way: then the racial
tensions and bad education would just help the ruling class,
wouldn't they?

No, not any more.  Majority of people already realized about
the gap.  The best kept secrets about the class divided Great
American Society are already out and loud and this can't be
reversed.  What I see is a more original way of keeping the
system afloat without actually changing it: there is an attempt
to minimize the impact and importance of the social and
economic differences between people - basically to show two
adventurers of which one is a millionaire after presenting the
results of the poll which predict positive changes in racial
relations and education but no change in economy, is to say
that there is no difference between rich and poor, really: we
can all have fun, we can all be happy if we do what makes us
happy.  Instead of saying that everybody can be rich, as it was
the course in 50's, now we will see them saying that being rich
doesn't really matter (hmm, isn't that a coincidence with the
aging hippies taking over?). This, of course, is a very unique
wager and I can't wait to see if the gamble would succeed.
While an experiment in creating a non-materialist class in
America is highly interesting, even more amusing are its
cynical backgrounds: instead of the rich and the poor, the aim
is to have the rich and the cool, so everybody can be happy.
This is called advanced citizenship.  This is what costs billions
of dollars in campaign and inauguration money.  Aren't you all
laughing already?

ivo
ps: I am way cool, I get aware of that whenever that sucker of
my landlord dares to sue me for not paying rent.



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