This is close to my way of thinking about the US. I once had a friend from Scandinavia tell me she could see who was American and who was European in a crowd by the way they stood. She assigned everyone who looked apologetic or hesitant as European, while everyone energetic and bright she made American. I pointed this out and she said Y…
This is close to my way of thinking about the US. I once had a friend from Scandinavia tell me she could see who was American and who was European in a crowd by the way they stood. She assigned everyone who looked apologetic or hesitant as European, while everyone energetic and bright she made American. I pointed this out and she said Yeah, it's easy to see! I circulated, and she was 90% accurate. That was startling.
I remember college activists in the '90s decrying the US as the "most racist country in the world" and "most sexist" and what-have-you -- but they rarely named corruption as one of the things making us the worst. Which I take as a sign that it was less out in the open, then. It was on a leash. I remember being proud that we had the standing in the world to supervise foreign elections, and bribing cops was not standard here; we were essentially the Federation -- showing up with phasers, but there to talk about Civics 101. I haven't had that sense of us since 9/11 brought "go shopping" and "axis of evil." (Obama made me believe we might still be that decent nation, because he so clearly was from it himself -- but he was up against 50 million Fox-addled nightmare brains.) And now under Trump, McConnell, and Hannity, corruption is fully unleashed. I would assume even the Peace Corps these days is there to steal cadmium. Corruption is in charge, and it has a whole media empire promoting it as the gold standard, and millions of people transformed by that media into "team players" instead of Americans. No Republican now would commit to "throw the bums out" without first asking which letter is next to a bum's name. And if (R), it wouldn't matter what he stole. In 1974 it mattered. In '76 it mattered. It probably started to turn with Reagan's election -- it didn't matter as much by Iran-Contra in '87. People wanted to believe the American myth -- which shifted from "we throw the bums out" into "our daddy's no bum, you no-good liar!" So the leash around corruption started to slip.
Yeah, I'd say they've always been with us. And once a century or so they end up in charge for a while (ish 1870-1895, 1920-1932). I just hope we beat em this time too.
"Yeah, I'd say they've always been with us. And once a century or so they end up in charge for a while (ish 1870-1895, 1920-1932). I just hope we beat em this time too."
Your lips, god's ears.
Me, I want to see a holy smiting of Republicans, maybe the private sector scumbags that corrupted the system, now that I think about it.
"It probably started to turn with Reagan's election -- it didn't matter as much by Iran-Contra in '87. " One thing led to the other. Once you agreed government was problem, it stood to reason that one of the problems government was, is that it kept you from stealing from the Treasury.
This is close to my way of thinking about the US. I once had a friend from Scandinavia tell me she could see who was American and who was European in a crowd by the way they stood. She assigned everyone who looked apologetic or hesitant as European, while everyone energetic and bright she made American. I pointed this out and she said Yeah, it's easy to see! I circulated, and she was 90% accurate. That was startling.
I remember college activists in the '90s decrying the US as the "most racist country in the world" and "most sexist" and what-have-you -- but they rarely named corruption as one of the things making us the worst. Which I take as a sign that it was less out in the open, then. It was on a leash. I remember being proud that we had the standing in the world to supervise foreign elections, and bribing cops was not standard here; we were essentially the Federation -- showing up with phasers, but there to talk about Civics 101. I haven't had that sense of us since 9/11 brought "go shopping" and "axis of evil." (Obama made me believe we might still be that decent nation, because he so clearly was from it himself -- but he was up against 50 million Fox-addled nightmare brains.) And now under Trump, McConnell, and Hannity, corruption is fully unleashed. I would assume even the Peace Corps these days is there to steal cadmium. Corruption is in charge, and it has a whole media empire promoting it as the gold standard, and millions of people transformed by that media into "team players" instead of Americans. No Republican now would commit to "throw the bums out" without first asking which letter is next to a bum's name. And if (R), it wouldn't matter what he stole. In 1974 it mattered. In '76 it mattered. It probably started to turn with Reagan's election -- it didn't matter as much by Iran-Contra in '87. People wanted to believe the American myth -- which shifted from "we throw the bums out" into "our daddy's no bum, you no-good liar!" So the leash around corruption started to slip.
Yeah, I'd say they've always been with us. And once a century or so they end up in charge for a while (ish 1870-1895, 1920-1932). I just hope we beat em this time too.
"Yeah, I'd say they've always been with us. And once a century or so they end up in charge for a while (ish 1870-1895, 1920-1932). I just hope we beat em this time too."
Your lips, god's ears.
Me, I want to see a holy smiting of Republicans, maybe the private sector scumbags that corrupted the system, now that I think about it.
"It probably started to turn with Reagan's election -- it didn't matter as much by Iran-Contra in '87. " One thing led to the other. Once you agreed government was problem, it stood to reason that one of the problems government was, is that it kept you from stealing from the Treasury.