Americana: Fat, Dumb and Rich

So, how do you make Americans look stupid?

The simple answer seems to be you just give them an opportunity and they do the rest for you.

This is illustrated daily on news reports from the Whitehouse and Pentagon or in more stark relief in Sasha Baron Cohen's recent film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan".

Where to start?

The frat boys from the University of South Carolina who, after a few drinks complained about foreigners taking American jobs and various other ill advised racial ranks.

What about the old rodeo guy, who was able to illustrate his homophobia, racism, stupidity and violent streak within a few short minutes.

But is this really how Americans behave? Probably not. Just like Steve Irwin wasn't the average Australian, bin Laden isn't an average Saudi, Hitler wasn't an average German (he was Austrian anyway), etc.

The problem is that much of the world, including many European countries, Asia (except India and the Philippines), Africa and Australasia, perceive America as brash, unilateral, unworldly, ignorant and arrogant.

"Borat" is not a sophisticated analysis, unlike Jonathan Ross' 1992 Channel 4 UK series "Americana: Fat, Dumb and Rich" which went into great detail about the obsessions of Americans and their naiveté about the world they control and are slowly destroying.

From 1992 to today American's seem to have changed little. That's what happens in ultra-conservative, nationalistic, authoritarian, fundamentalist countries. Social and Cultural development is put on pause. Sound familiar? Look at the Middle East.

But this insularity makes them more out of touch as years go by, and comparatively more stupid as the world hurtles towards a new crossroad - Unite as Humans and not just as little national groups, or fight it out for world dominance.

THE WAR OF TERROR– THE HOME FRONT

LANGUAGE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING

For the generation who lived through World War 2 the term ‘the home front’ referred to rationing, and the re-organisation of labour to supply ‘the war effort’.

Nowadays 'the home front' is a very different prospect. It’s still about the things that a government has to do at home to fight a war overseas, but now the challenge is not logistics, but consent. Government govern in our name, so the difficulty is convincing the electorate that a war on the other side of the world; that has nothing to do with us or our allies, is our business, and in our best interest.

In the modern war, a media strategy is as important (arguably more important) as a military strategy. Governments will happily pay $30million to a media consultant to put the right spin on their war.

This ‘home front’ is fought with careful use of language to describe the different components. We are all familiar with some of the more notorious euphemisms, such as ‘collateral damage’ as friendly way of describing 30 civilians that were killed or maimed because the building they were in was erroneously thought to contain ‘enemy combatants’ (another of these weasel words that conceals unfavourable detail).

Beyond the obvious now notorious terms, there is a whole other layer of language and concepts that pervade through all levels of the news media and popular culture that have little to do with ‘The War of Terror’, other than they are means by which the public is coerced into endorsing or accepting war in our name.

That’s right folks, on the other side of the planet, people are being murdered in their homes or in the street, because we make it happen, our tax dollars pay for it, and the clowns we elected sign the cheques.

I intend to make this an ongoing examination of language and the construction of meaning, in the war of terror. The first instalment looks at recent comments by Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly, and implications and consequences of the media coverage of this incident.

Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly and the use of Metaphor

War of Terror, the Home Front:
Language and the Construction of Meaning. Part 1

A month or so back there was a lot of media hysteria in Australia about the comments of a particular Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly.

I WILL SAY IT STRAIGHT-UP: I AM NOT SUPPORTING OR CONDONING THE SHEIK’S COMMENTS.

The comments that caused offence was the use of the analogy of a cat being tempted by uncovered meat, to highlight the belief that immodestly dressed women inspire rape.

The offence the comment caused should have been in the fundamental concept that one person can be responsible for the actions of another, that a woman can ‘ask to be raped’ by the clothes she chooses to wear.
This was not the line of objection presented by sections of the Australian media (yes Naomi Robson and Ray Martin, I talking about you, and other mean-spirited, mouth-breathing halfwits like you).

Several TV news services claimed that Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly had said "women are cat-food”.

Anyone who thought that the comments placing the blame for rape with immodestly dressed women, was a statement claiming that 'women are cat food', have failed to understand one of the most basic tools of communication, 'metaphor'.

This was a real low point in Australian news and ‘current affairs’. There is no doubt that those who presented and saturated the news broadcasts for weeks with this slander were being disingenuous, that they intentionally misrepresented the case, and blew it out of all proportion.

There are probably those of you reading this wondering why I’m so annoyed by this, thinking ‘so what, they oversimplified it a bit, it wasn’t intentional, what’s the real harm in that?’
The problem is it was part of a cynical, intentional, campaign that makes war possible, and Australia a hateful, racist nation.

Anything Islamic/Arabic is considered worthy of headlines, and is reported in a particular way by the tabloid news services. Extraordinary efforts are made to link any ‘news item’ about Islam/Arab nations/individuals with terrorism. Other terrorist links don’t rate a mention anymore. When did anyone last hear concerns regarding the IRA, or a Timothy McVeigh-type Anglo terrorist?

The ‘she’s asking for it dressed like that’ mentality is alive and well in many Anglo/Euro sections of Australian society, there is no shortage of sexist stupidity in Anglo-Australia, but the media outrage wasn’t about that. It was just another opportunity for the ‘lowest common denominator’ media outlets to portray Islam as the ultimate evil ‘other’.

The only way the majority of Australians will tolerate a war is if they think that their way of life is under threat from something worthy of fear. From the point of view of those trying to ‘sell the war’, the beautiful thing about ‘fear’ is that all you need to produce it, is to prevent people from being able quantify the threat they face, that when they can no longer relate to ‘the enemy’ as people, you get infinite fear and hysteria (I'd like to take this opportunity to say 'hello' to our friends in America!).

So, back to Hilaly. If that dishonest sector of the media had have reported the sexist implications of the ‘cat/uncovered meat analogy’, then the reactionary thugs that watch so-called ‘current affairs’ programs like ‘today tonight’ would be watching a story about sexist views that many have in common with Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly, and that could even possibly undo some of the hard work that those media outlets had done in making Islamic clerics ‘alien’ (“see, he’s just like ‘real Aussie’ men who secretly know that ‘no’ means ‘yes’). That is why a different news headline ‘cleric likens women to raw meat’ was repeated so much, they want us to think that Muslim men are evil, and keep women chained-up in the basement (“it puts the lotion on its skin and puts it in the basket”)

Recently an American bigot who is known as ‘JohnK’, tried to convince me that ‘the war on terror’ was really a ‘war on Islam’, and that it was only political correctness that prevented the American government from calling it ‘the war on Islam’. While this was just JohnK’s xenophobic belief that to fight a war on terror effectively, YOU HAVE TO KILL EVERY MUSLIM, there is a greater truth to his initial claim, and his misguided beliefs demonstrate it. In order get support for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American government have succeeded in convincing more than just JohnK that the enemy is Islam, that all Muslims are irretrievably evil. The implication is that war in Iraq is necessary, and by its nature, we needn’t be concerned about the possibility of ‘innocent civilians’ being harmed, as all Muslims are potential ‘enemy combatants’ (ask David Hicks, he might be AngloAustralian, but underneath that white skin beats ‘an evil Islamic heart’).

So whether its misrepresenting the comments of Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly, racial violence on a Sydney beach, the contents of citizenship tests, stories of great waves of ‘illegal immigrants’ coming in boats, it isn’t sloppy reporting, it is strictly in line with the policy of trying to make Arabs/Muslims be seen as evil, that some media outlets have. Hate, fear, and hysteria make good ratings/sell newspapers. It also makes the government’s task of selling their wars to us, a whole lot easier.

un-americanising australia

Kevin Rudd may be a Christian and a politician, and more Centre than Left, but he's more intelligent than any world leaders of note today, and he appears to be a very very good alternative to our current brutal conservative leaders.

John Howard is not as much evil as blind to his own humanity. He is first a politician, then a money manager and also Lawyer in that order.

To Howard, people are here to serve the economy, not as it should be which is the exact opposite.

The USA is an economy with people in it, most of them struggling whilst a few of them prosper.

Similarly Howard's inhuman money hungry policies reek of American Capitalism where we force prices and wages down, use any and all resources to get the job done, and leave little or no legacy for the next generation.

We don't want to go any further down that path.

Here's a link to Howard's Brutopia, an essay by Kevin Rudd, the next PM of Australia. That's right, he is multi-lingual, good with the media, and writes very readable essays for interesting publications.

The next year promises to be an interesting one in Aussie politics.

sanity in the USA and a real political opposition in australia

It has taken a hell of a long time, but finally the tide has turned against GW Bush, and about goddam time too.

The Pentagon and the UN now both seem to have voices of reason, especially compared to the previous occupants of these pivotal roles. The world won't be bullied by the US forever, nor will the rest of us come running when arrogant war mongers like Bush keep making huge mistakes like the unlawful invasion of Iraq.

On a much much brighter note, the ALP's new leadership team of Rudd and Guillard have given a huge boost to the mood on the left of politics in this country.

John Howard's days are numbered.

Bush loses another attack dog

So called "Diplomat" John Bolton has lost his place at the UN in a backlash against his un-Diplomatic approach to world events.

The hard-line US ambassador to the UN has announced that he will step down within weeks. As usual the office of George Bush allowed Bolton to "resign" prior to being ousted by the new Democrat controlled Senate. Many Senate Democrats - and a few Republicans - charged that his hard-line ideology and penchant for confrontation was at odds with the UN's multilateral nature.

As recently as November the Bush administration appeared intent on fighting to keep Bolton in his current position, however they have lost their stranglehold on the political environment, and seem to be losing each confrontation they wade into. I guess the clock is ticking, Mr Bush.