Ivo Skoric" (by way of mf@MediaFilter.org (MediaFilter)) on Tue, 21 Jan 97 09:41 MET |
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nettime: American Millenium: The Rich and The Cool |
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. -- * distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission * <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, * collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets * more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body * URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de