So after a year or so of hearing from various sources about America's lack of healthcare, religious fundamentalism, rampant racism, poor educational system, hypocritical Neo-cons in positions of power (e.g., Larry Craig scandal), authorized torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Patriot Act, illegal NSA wire-tapping, racial profiling, pork-barreling, Sarah Palin, "Dubya," declining economic superiority, etc. my N. Irish friend, Conor S., naturally asked the question: "Why would anyone want to live in America?"
At the time we were discussing America's lack of universal healthcare, so I just answered that there are other things in life that matter besides healthcare . . . but I was swimming earlier and so I had some time to think about it.
1. The Lotto Theory
I liken it to why so many people buy lottery tickets day after day, even after a lifetime of not winning. Even though statistically it is more likely for them to be struck by lightning, they still continue to spend their money on a dream that doesn't come to fruition because of that minuscule chance that they may strike it rich. I think people abroad buy into this American dream. They think that they have the best opportunity to become a wealthy baron in the US of A. These people might not even be that naive and know how corrupt the system is--that odds are stacked against them since the rich, white Republicans are in a tight-knit, incestual circle and without the networking relationships, despite your talents and skills, you'd be hard-pressed to rise above the middle-class threshold. Still, blind hope drives them.
American society has long been famous for its social mobility. Unlike India, there is no caste-based society and its not your background or race that counts but your bank account figure-in other words, money talks. Well, that's what they say anyways. I like how the indie movie, "Igby Goes Down," addresses this in a humorous way. By painting Upper East Side folk as soulless and bankrupt of human emotion.
2. Hollywood/Media
American TV and movies are what kids around the world grow up on. Hollywood really sells America. Just take a look at movies like "Die Hard 4.0" or "Rambo." The tough American hero saves the day by killing the enemies and bringing American-style democracy to the world. I don't even think it's really a conscious decision. It's only natural that American Hollywood execs and the like would want to paint their homeland in an idyllic manner. After all they do live in the US, so they also want to buy into the notion that America is one-of-a-kind, special, and better than any other place in the world.
Just take a look at Fox News. Despite widespread allegations of inaccuracy and bias, it is still the most watched news station in the nation. Precisely because it ignores its own tag-line of being "Fair and Balanced," instead they give the people what they want. People don't want the truth, they want to be deluded and told that they are living in the no. 1 country in the world and that the only problems affecting America are coming from outside the country. Fox News viewers like to live in a simplistic black-and-white world, where there is an easy to identify enemy, Muslims. And the neocons even explain away critics by painting liberals as treasonous, "anti-American" traitors that may or may not be sympathetic to terrorists.
Of course there are other factors that may contribute to people seeking American residence. For instance, a cleaner environment . . . that is unless you live near a pig farm: Rolling Stone article.
People also look to America as a paragon for civil liberties . . . that is unless you care about the environment, animal rights, or in general social activism: NY Times article.
Author's note: Don't get me wrong. America has its faults but all countries do. I write this mostly because I fear America is sliding into another McCarthy era. Nazism started in Germany when the economy was in shambles and a charismatic leader appealed to the mob, namely people's base emotions (i.e., fear and hatred of minorities). Fascism doesn't develop overnight; an entire nation must be lulled into accepting these policies and essentially demand for them to be implemented.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Role Race Plays in US Politics
Taipei Times Editorial
"Race is a crucial factor in the US presidential race
By Sin-ming Shaw
Monday, Oct 20, 2008, Page 9
Three-quarters of Americans now disapprove of US President George W. Bush’s performance. Given this, and the fact that the policies and values of Senator John McCain and his vice presidential nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, are almost identical to those of Bush, you would expect Senator Barack Obama to be leading in the polls by a wider margin than he is.
The reason that he is not, I suspect, is racism. When polled, most older white voters overwhelming reject Obama, even if many of them are unhappy with Bush. Indeed, one-third of Democrats have at various times told pollsters that they will not vote for a black candidate. And a recent Associated Press/Yahoo News poll suggested that his race is costing Obama 6 percentage points in the polls.
Most of the time, this racism is covert, only hinted at through code words. The media, particularly the increasingly popular conservative media and talk radio, are particularly important here.
Obama is consistently criticized for his “otherness” and his “arrogance,” terms that call to mind the label of the “uppity nigger” from the days of segregation, which are actually not so far in the US’ past.
FOX CONDESCENSION
In a recent interview, Bill O’Reilly, the most popular TV talk show host at Fox News, the US’s most watched news station, talked down to Obama in so condescending a manner that some viewers were reminded of the image of a slave owner in an old Hollywood movie putting a young black upstart in his place.
Sean Hannity, another star host at the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News, demanded repeatedly on air from one interviewee, Fareed Zakaria, a well-known columnist at Newsweek with a CNN talk show of his own, to know whether he thought the US to be the greatest nation on earth.
The dark-skinned Zakaria, a naturalized American from India with a doctorate from Harvard University, felt compelled to affirm his loyalty for the US twice. It is hard to imagine Hannity demanding such a public affirmation of loyalty from anyone with white skin.
THE ‘BRADLEY’ EFFECT
So how much is race costing Obama? The problem is that pollsters cannot effectively measure the problem. They call it the “Bradley effect,” first noted during the 1982 governor’s race in California, when Tom Bradley, the then African-American mayor of Los Angeles, lost the race to his white opponent despite leading in pre-election polls throughout the campaign.
The idea behind the “Bradley effect” is that white voters won’t reveal their prejudices to pollsters. Instead, they lie and say that they will vote for the black candidate when, in fact, they have no intention of doing so.
Of course, many people now say that Obama has proven that the “Bradley effect” is a thing of the past. But his continuing difficulties with white working-class voters, who in the primaries went with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, suggest that, perhaps, the “Bradley effect” is still alive and well.
Younger Americans accept inter-racial relationships as part of the normal social and sexual landscape. Yet, the very speed with which American society has progressed has threatened half of the country, older and mostly white, unable and unwilling to live in the present.
The moderate Republican Party of former US president Dwight Eisenhower and the Rockefellers has been taken over by a radical crowd, with even Eisenhower’s granddaughter now openly backing Obama. So it boggles many non-Americans’ minds that so many in that great nation still do not wake up to the reality that four more years of Republican rule will further degrade and bankrupt the country.
In any civilized society, ignorance is not illegal and being moralistic is anybody’s inherent privilege. But what is alarming is how private religious beliefs and morals have increasingly shaped the secular agenda of the US, whose Founding Fathers had specifically designed the Constitution to separate state and church.
RADICAL REPUBLICANS?
Today’s radical Republican Party represents a large segment of the population that believes that abortions and same-sex marriage are immoral, that God sent the US to Iraq, and that bailing out Wall Street is “socialism.”
At the Republican Convention in August, the ear-splitting chants of “USA! USA!” and “Drill, baby, drill” sounded like cries of desperation, as well as of defiance against an enemy who threatens American’s divine right to remain supreme. Palin has since identified the enemy, proclaiming of Obama: “This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.”
Whether or not her judgment carries a racist undertone, as many observers believe, the polls indicate that many Americans agree.
Sin-ming Shaw is a former visiting fellow in History at Oxford and Princeton universities."
___________________________________________________________________________
I don't normally copy and paste entire articles but I thought he made pretty good points, especially on 'the Bradley effect.'
Speaking of articles...they wrote my name wrong in the MTC Quarterly so I have been downgraded from a triumphant black stallion with a white mane to a lowly camel-long story-I might clarify in a later post.
I like this song by 四分衛:
(I saw them live in concert at Spring Scream and their other songs were good too. This one is sort of 'emo.')
"Race is a crucial factor in the US presidential race
By Sin-ming Shaw
Monday, Oct 20, 2008, Page 9
Three-quarters of Americans now disapprove of US President George W. Bush’s performance. Given this, and the fact that the policies and values of Senator John McCain and his vice presidential nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, are almost identical to those of Bush, you would expect Senator Barack Obama to be leading in the polls by a wider margin than he is.
The reason that he is not, I suspect, is racism. When polled, most older white voters overwhelming reject Obama, even if many of them are unhappy with Bush. Indeed, one-third of Democrats have at various times told pollsters that they will not vote for a black candidate. And a recent Associated Press/Yahoo News poll suggested that his race is costing Obama 6 percentage points in the polls.
Most of the time, this racism is covert, only hinted at through code words. The media, particularly the increasingly popular conservative media and talk radio, are particularly important here.
Obama is consistently criticized for his “otherness” and his “arrogance,” terms that call to mind the label of the “uppity nigger” from the days of segregation, which are actually not so far in the US’ past.
FOX CONDESCENSION
In a recent interview, Bill O’Reilly, the most popular TV talk show host at Fox News, the US’s most watched news station, talked down to Obama in so condescending a manner that some viewers were reminded of the image of a slave owner in an old Hollywood movie putting a young black upstart in his place.
Sean Hannity, another star host at the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News, demanded repeatedly on air from one interviewee, Fareed Zakaria, a well-known columnist at Newsweek with a CNN talk show of his own, to know whether he thought the US to be the greatest nation on earth.
The dark-skinned Zakaria, a naturalized American from India with a doctorate from Harvard University, felt compelled to affirm his loyalty for the US twice. It is hard to imagine Hannity demanding such a public affirmation of loyalty from anyone with white skin.
THE ‘BRADLEY’ EFFECT
So how much is race costing Obama? The problem is that pollsters cannot effectively measure the problem. They call it the “Bradley effect,” first noted during the 1982 governor’s race in California, when Tom Bradley, the then African-American mayor of Los Angeles, lost the race to his white opponent despite leading in pre-election polls throughout the campaign.
The idea behind the “Bradley effect” is that white voters won’t reveal their prejudices to pollsters. Instead, they lie and say that they will vote for the black candidate when, in fact, they have no intention of doing so.
Of course, many people now say that Obama has proven that the “Bradley effect” is a thing of the past. But his continuing difficulties with white working-class voters, who in the primaries went with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, suggest that, perhaps, the “Bradley effect” is still alive and well.
Younger Americans accept inter-racial relationships as part of the normal social and sexual landscape. Yet, the very speed with which American society has progressed has threatened half of the country, older and mostly white, unable and unwilling to live in the present.
The moderate Republican Party of former US president Dwight Eisenhower and the Rockefellers has been taken over by a radical crowd, with even Eisenhower’s granddaughter now openly backing Obama. So it boggles many non-Americans’ minds that so many in that great nation still do not wake up to the reality that four more years of Republican rule will further degrade and bankrupt the country.
In any civilized society, ignorance is not illegal and being moralistic is anybody’s inherent privilege. But what is alarming is how private religious beliefs and morals have increasingly shaped the secular agenda of the US, whose Founding Fathers had specifically designed the Constitution to separate state and church.
RADICAL REPUBLICANS?
Today’s radical Republican Party represents a large segment of the population that believes that abortions and same-sex marriage are immoral, that God sent the US to Iraq, and that bailing out Wall Street is “socialism.”
At the Republican Convention in August, the ear-splitting chants of “USA! USA!” and “Drill, baby, drill” sounded like cries of desperation, as well as of defiance against an enemy who threatens American’s divine right to remain supreme. Palin has since identified the enemy, proclaiming of Obama: “This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.”
Whether or not her judgment carries a racist undertone, as many observers believe, the polls indicate that many Americans agree.
Sin-ming Shaw is a former visiting fellow in History at Oxford and Princeton universities."
___________________________________________________________________________
I don't normally copy and paste entire articles but I thought he made pretty good points, especially on 'the Bradley effect.'
Speaking of articles...they wrote my name wrong in the MTC Quarterly so I have been downgraded from a triumphant black stallion with a white mane to a lowly camel-long story-I might clarify in a later post.
I like this song by 四分衛:
(I saw them live in concert at Spring Scream and their other songs were good too. This one is sort of 'emo.')
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
"It's been said since time begun, youth is wasted on the young"
The grass is always greener, eh?
Before I got this job I thought I was wasting my life and was desperate to start making money and start getting real work experience...and now that I'm in that position I want nothing more than to have my freedom and idle time back.
Everyday is the same now. I rush off in a daze to my hour-long commute to work. Waiting for the subway, waiting for the bus, always waiting for something...Then I get to work and wait for the workday to end so I can go home and eat something.
-Driftland, "Youth is Wasted on the Young"
Before I got this job I thought I was wasting my life and was desperate to start making money and start getting real work experience...and now that I'm in that position I want nothing more than to have my freedom and idle time back.
Everyday is the same now. I rush off in a daze to my hour-long commute to work. Waiting for the subway, waiting for the bus, always waiting for something...Then I get to work and wait for the workday to end so I can go home and eat something.
The world's on fire
and my heart keeps on telling me that these are early days
Philosophy don't worry me
I've changed my mind so many times so many ways
and acting like the only one of thinking about what I have done I've found
experience is cursed
It's been said since time begun, youth is wasted on the young
-Driftland, "Youth is Wasted on the Young"
Monday, October 13, 2008
The End of the World As We Know It?
"Some of us—especially those under 60—have always wondered what it would be like to live through the kind of epochal event one reads about in books. Well, this is it. We're now living history, suffering one of the greatest financial panics of all time. It compares with the big ones—1907, 1929—and we cannot yet know its full consequences for the financial system, the economy or society as a whole."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163449
That said...I certainly don't feel it on the other side of the Pacific in Taipei, Taiwan where 'recession' or 'economic downturn' (經濟不景氣）hangs on everyone's lips but the fact remains that restaurants and department stores remain packed and busy and people are still going about life as usual. So here in the East, I just don't feel the panic.
Seeing the news from America is like watching a car crash from afar, worrying about those affected but bewildered at what to do or how to empathize.
On a related note, I skimmed part of "Network" after watching a provocative, controversial 'documentary' called "Zeitgeist" on Google Video, which played several dramatic clips from "Network (1976)":
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197
(it got an 8.8 rating on IMDB)
From IMDB, Memorable Quotes from "Network":
Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.
Howard Beale: [shouting] You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]
Howard Beale: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
Howard Beale: [screaming at the top of his lungs] "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
I'm not alone cause the TV's on yeah.
I'm not crazy cause I take the right pills everyday.
And rest, clean your conscious, clear your thoughts with speyside with your grain.
Clean your conscious, clear your thoughts with speyside.
Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt.
Our hearts littering the topsoil.
Tune in and we can get the last call.
Our lives, our coal.
Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt.
Our hearts littering the topsoil.
Sign up it's the picket line or the parade.
-Jimmy Eats World, "Bleed American"
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163449
That said...I certainly don't feel it on the other side of the Pacific in Taipei, Taiwan where 'recession' or 'economic downturn' (經濟不景氣）hangs on everyone's lips but the fact remains that restaurants and department stores remain packed and busy and people are still going about life as usual. So here in the East, I just don't feel the panic.
Seeing the news from America is like watching a car crash from afar, worrying about those affected but bewildered at what to do or how to empathize.
On a related note, I skimmed part of "Network" after watching a provocative, controversial 'documentary' called "Zeitgeist" on Google Video, which played several dramatic clips from "Network (1976)":
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197
(it got an 8.8 rating on IMDB)
From IMDB, Memorable Quotes from "Network":
Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.
Howard Beale: [shouting] You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
[shouting]
Howard Beale: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
Howard Beale: [screaming at the top of his lungs] "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
I'm not alone cause the TV's on yeah.
I'm not crazy cause I take the right pills everyday.
And rest, clean your conscious, clear your thoughts with speyside with your grain.
Clean your conscious, clear your thoughts with speyside.
Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt.
Our hearts littering the topsoil.
Tune in and we can get the last call.
Our lives, our coal.
Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt.
Our hearts littering the topsoil.
Sign up it's the picket line or the parade.
-Jimmy Eats World, "Bleed American"
呆若木雞
Maybe its the warmer climate
Maybe I'm a smarter primate
Maybe its the beer I'm drinking
Maybe I've stopped over thinking
[...]
But the universe is just an empty space
And all the stars can disappear without a trace
I'm so glad that this has taken me so long
Cos it's the journey that made me so strong
-Snow Patrol, "Warmer Climate"
Recently, I keep listening to certain tracks on the "Eyes Open" album.
I don't consider myself 'EMO' but I guess I've been in that mood as of late.
(I think "Open Up Your Eyes" is a little overplayed but I like the music video).
I want something
That's purer than the water
Like we were
It's not there now
Ineloquence and anger
Are all we have
[...]
We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost
-SP, "Beginning To Get To Me"
I read this poem/short story (?) by Zhuangzi （莊子）called "Fighting Cock" (「鬥雞」) and no it's not supposed to be funny, despite the name translated in English...
Anyways, I sort of feel like that cock in the story. He had so much passion and fire (鬥志高昂 in the beginning but after all the training, he just becomes a wooden cock ( 呆若木雞).
(And if anyone knows the story they are probably thinking: you dumbass! you misinterpreted the entire morale of the story! Well I know that in this story, 木雞 is actually used in a positive manner in that he had reached such an elevated state that the other cocks did not even dare get close to him...but anyways when applying that state to me I'm using it in a negative way).
Before the intense training and reformation, the impulsive （根本沉不住氣) cock also felt he was superior to the riff raff around him: 他老是自命不凡地對周遭怒目相向。I've found that since I've come to Taiwan I've been feeling more 自命不凡 than before. Is that necessarily bad? It is according to Chinese culture and yet all the luminaries of Chinese have regarded themselves as so.
So I don't think I'm making any coherent sense anymore...and I feel like a dick by making obscure references to an old Taoist philosopher, whose poems or short stories are written in 文言文. Plus, I need to get back to work bc the format problem (Microsoft Word-> Open Office -> Windows -> Mac OS X as well as font issues, etc) has been resolved and so I need to get crackin' at it.
Maybe I'm a smarter primate
Maybe its the beer I'm drinking
Maybe I've stopped over thinking
[...]
But the universe is just an empty space
And all the stars can disappear without a trace
I'm so glad that this has taken me so long
Cos it's the journey that made me so strong
-Snow Patrol, "Warmer Climate"
Recently, I keep listening to certain tracks on the "Eyes Open" album.
I don't consider myself 'EMO' but I guess I've been in that mood as of late.
(I think "Open Up Your Eyes" is a little overplayed but I like the music video).
I want something
That's purer than the water
Like we were
It's not there now
Ineloquence and anger
Are all we have
[...]
We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost
-SP, "Beginning To Get To Me"
I read this poem/short story (?) by Zhuangzi （莊子）called "Fighting Cock" (「鬥雞」) and no it's not supposed to be funny, despite the name translated in English...
Anyways, I sort of feel like that cock in the story. He had so much passion and fire (鬥志高昂 in the beginning but after all the training, he just becomes a wooden cock ( 呆若木雞).
(And if anyone knows the story they are probably thinking: you dumbass! you misinterpreted the entire morale of the story! Well I know that in this story, 木雞 is actually used in a positive manner in that he had reached such an elevated state that the other cocks did not even dare get close to him...but anyways when applying that state to me I'm using it in a negative way).
Before the intense training and reformation, the impulsive （根本沉不住氣) cock also felt he was superior to the riff raff around him: 他老是自命不凡地對周遭怒目相向。I've found that since I've come to Taiwan I've been feeling more 自命不凡 than before. Is that necessarily bad? It is according to Chinese culture and yet all the luminaries of Chinese have regarded themselves as so.
So I don't think I'm making any coherent sense anymore...and I feel like a dick by making obscure references to an old Taoist philosopher, whose poems or short stories are written in 文言文. Plus, I need to get back to work bc the format problem (Microsoft Word-> Open Office -> Windows -> Mac OS X as well as font issues, etc) has been resolved and so I need to get crackin' at it.
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