America's Essential Political Insanity

Walk with me a while and imagine you are mad. Crazy. Insane. It's an interesting sort of insanity-you see the world as something other than it is. You are dead convinced that people are out to get you, but these people have almost no means to harm you and fear your retaliation greatly, because you're a powerful person and they are weak.

You believe that you are hale and hearty; but in fact you're ghastly, obese and ill. You think you're rich, but in fact you're poor. You think you have the best doctor around, but in fact your doctor is worse than almost every other doctor and charges 50% more than them. You think you're tough, and you certainly haven't let the fact that two ninety pound weaklings seem to be able to stand up to you get in the way of that.

You think that you have the most advanced technological toys, that what you have is the best, and once you did, but these days everyone else seems to have more advanced stuff.

The illness goes deeper though, a deep decay in your brain. The parts of your brain that make most of the decisions for your body think everything is wonderful. They seem only able to take in sensations from the taste buds these days, and for the last thirty years you've been on a rich diet. So they think everything's great. Your once lean body, packed with muscles, has been replaced by a flaccid one, paunchy and fat, but somehow the key parts of your brain don't know that. They don't feel your sore back, they don't hear the broken down breathing and they don't see the gut hanging over your belt.

The you I'm referring to, as I'm sure many have figured out by now, is the US. For years I've been writing for the US and observing it carefully, and I've found it one of the most interesting problems I've encountered in my life. Because America and Americans are very unpredictable. Now, of course, the first thing I thought was "it's me," and in a sense, that's true.

Yet, here's the thing, I have a very good record of predicting what will happen in Somalia, or Afghanistan, or Iraq. And when I get it wrong, I can look back and easily figure out why. Yet I've never visited any of those countries and really, know very little about them. On the other hand I grew up imbibing American media, know American history well, have visited America a number of times and spent 8 years in jobs that required me to deal with multiple Americans daily.

Odd. Very odd. And something I've discussed with other foreign observers of American society and politics.

The first clue to what was wrong came around the time of the Iraq war. It was obvious, dead obvious, to everyone outside of the US and to US citizens who were spending a lot of time parsing news, that the war was a joke and that Saddam had no nukes and was no threat to the US. Most Americans, however, didn't get that. The reason, of course, was propaganda.

Fair enough. Every country whips its citizens into war hysteria with propaganda. But what was truly remarkable wasn't that, it was that somehow the majority of Americans, over 70%, thought that Iraq was behind 9/11. Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Nothing.

Remarkable. Americans went along with going to war with Iraq then because they thought Iraq had attacked them and had nukes and could attack them again. A complete propaganda tissue of lies. But if you believe it all, well of course Iraq needed to be attacked.

What looked to the rest of the world as crazy was entirely logical. It was, however, still insane. If I see a tentacled monster from the fourth dimension attack me and I respond by grabbing a knife and slashing apart my next door neighbour who's waving at me, well, I had a logical, coherent reason for what I did, but I still murdered him, and I'm still insane.

This is the first type of insanity in the US and it runs deep. I often feel like I spend more time correcting outright lies, outright propaganda, than anything else. Just this week I had to explain to a left wing blogger (who should know better) that single payer health insurance is cheaper and gives better results than private insurance system. Now in the US this is somehow still in doubt, but that's insane-this isn't in question, every other western nation that has single payer insurance spends about 1/3 less than the US and has as good health metrics or better either in most or all categories. This isn't something that's up in the air; this isn't something that is unsettled. This is a bloody FACT.

Americans think they are the most technologically advanced society in the world, yet the US does not have the fastest broadband, the fastest trains, the best cellphones, the most advanced consumer electronics (go to Japan and you'll see what I mean) or the most advanced green energy technology.

In the primary season Ron Paul was repeatedly cut out of media coverage and John Edwards was hardly covered. The majority of Americans thought that Edwards was running as the most right wing of the Democratic candidates. Huckabee was constantly called a populist when his signature tax program would gut the middle class and slap the poor onto a fiscal rack.

And when all is said and done, politicians are still running on slashing taxes and having that make up for itself, while the US runs a balance of payments higher than any other country post World War II has ever done without going into an economic crash.

That's one type of insanity-thinking the world is something that it isn't.

The second is worse, in a sense. When Diamond wrote his book on why societies collapse he came to the conclusion that it occurred when elites weren't experiencing the same things as the majority of the society-when they were isolated from the problems and challenges the society was facing.

For 30 years ordinary Americans haven't had a raise. And despite all the lies, Americans are beginning to get that.

But for the people in charge the last thirty years have been absolutely wonderful. Seriously, things haven't been this good since the 1890's and the 1920's. Everyone they know-their families, their mistresses and toyboys, their friends-is doing well. Wall Street paid even larger bonuses for 2007, the year they ran the ship into the shore, than they did in 2006 when their bonuses equalled the raises of 80 million Americans. Multiple CEOs walked away from companies they had bankrupted with golden parachutes in excess of 50 million. And if you can find a Senator who isn't a millionaire (except maybe Bernie Sanders) you let me know.

Life has been great. The fact that America is physically unhealthy, falling behind technologically, hemorrhaging good jobs and that ordinary Americans are in debt up to their eyebrows, haven't seen a raise in 30 years and live in mortal fear of getting ill-because even if they have insurance it doesn't cover the necessary care-means nothing to the decision making part of America because it hasn't experienced it. America's elites are doing fine, thanks. All they can taste, or remember is the caviar and champagne they swill to celebrate how wonderful they are and how much they deserve all the money federal policy has given them.

This is the second insanity of the US-that the decision making apparatus in the US is disconnected from the results of their decisions. They make sure they get paid, that they're wealthy, and let the rest of society go to hell. In the end, of course, most of them will find that the money isn't theirs, and that what they've stolen is worth very little if the US has a real financial crisis.

The third insanity is simpler: it's the wealth effect. At the end of World War II the US had about half the world's economy. Admittedly that's because Europe had been bombed into oblivion, but even when Europe rebuilt the US was still far, far ahead. The US was insanely rich and powerful. See, when you're rich you can do stupid and unproductive things for a long time. There are plenty of examples of this but the two most obvious ones are the US military and the War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs hasn't reduced the number of junkies or drugs on the street in any noticeable way. It has increased the US's prison population to the highest per capita level in the world, however. It has cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It has gutted civil liberties (the war on terror is just the war on drugs on crack, after all). And after 30 years does anyone seriously say "wait, this doesn't work, it costs billions of dollars and it makes us a society of prisons?" Of course not, if anything people compete to be "tough on crime." What's the definition of insanity, again? Doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results?

Then there's the US military. It costs, oh, about as much as everyone else in the world's military combined. It seems to be at best in a stalemate and probably losing two wars against a bunch of rabble whose total budgets probably wouldn't equal a tenth of one percent of a US appropriations bill. And it is justified as "defending" America even though there is no nation in the entire world which could invade the US if the US had one tenth the military.

But the US could (not can, they are now unaffordable, but could) afford to have a big shiny military and lots of prisons, so it does. Lots of people get rich off of both of them, lots of rural whites get to lock up uban blacks and lots of communities that wouldn't exist otherwise get to survive courtesy of the unneeded military bases and prisons which should never have been built.

Insane-believing things that aren't true.

Insane-decision makers are cut off from the consequences of their decisions and in fact are getting reverse feedback, as things get worse for most Americans and as America gets weaker and poorer, they are the richest they've ever been.

Insane-so rich that no one will stop doing things that clearly don't work and are harmful, because people are making money off the insanity.

All of this is what makes predicting the US so surreal. It's not just about knowing what the facts are and then thinking "ok, how would people respond to that?" You have to know what the facts are, what the population thinks the facts are, what the elites think the facts are, who's making money off of it, and then ask yourself if these facts are having any real effect on the elites and if that effect is enough to outweigh the money they're making off of failure (how many of them have children serving in Iraq? Right, not urgent to fix.)

And then you have to go back to the facts and ask yourself "what effect will these have even if they're being ignored." Facts are ugly things, they tend not to go away.

All of which makes the US damn near impenetrable, often enough even to Americans.

But here's what I do know-you can get away with being nuts as long as enough people are benefiting from you being insane. When the credit cards are all maxed out, when the relatives have stolen even the furniture, suddenly all the enablers go away and the kneebreakers or the men in white pay you a visit. At that point you can live in the real world, or you can go to the asylum.

I wonder which way the US will go?

Comments

[dadumdee]

Thank you, Ian Welsh! Thank you for the catharsis. It's very lonely feeling like the last sane person, isn't it. I've lost disinterested girlfriends, uninformed friends, and I've offended otherwise sensible associates merely by pointing out these insanities. The only silver lining is that the elite may have overplayed their hand and the masses' common sense has kicked in. The propaganda is still there in full force, but there is something inately counterintuitive about having tax payer money cover banks' gambling losses, or having a two party system that advocates variations of the same theme, or the use of 'terrorism' to curtail American freedoms, or getting news from a source that is making money off of the military.

[Arion]

Thank you, Mr. W. It's the deck of the Titanic.

[dogdiva]

Thank god! It's such a relief to hear it all straight out! Now...who to send it to? Certainly not all those around me who haven't a clue what's being reported on the "nightly news" let alone what's wrong with the evening news. Not to any of those who consider themselves "in the know" because they sit in front of Fox news day in and day out. Not to those who pat your hand and say "Now, now...you can't let yourself get all worked up about these things!" I can't send it to the people who say "If you don't like it then get out!". There's not much of an audience in the deeply cerebral "all politics sucks!" crowd. Honestly, I think I might be happier to find the "asylum". I might prefer the company.

Seriously.­..does anyone else find themselves at a loss as to what can be done...who to follow...w­here to go? I know there are more Americans than would appear who share this authors opinion, but they are might tough to find on main street. I watch all the bickering and focus on one ridiculously obvious notion after another...­most of it to the detriment of those who support it. The leaders tell the citizens "we can't" and the citizens say "Well maybe next time!". On and on ...all the while no one acknowledging our only hope is to push a giant reset button. We aren't even close to having a serious discussion.

[bbbear]

Brilliant! That was me when I was first shipped off to Europe. I spent a few eye opening years flying around there. Most of the Newspapers in England, and Western Europe actually printed ALL of the news! .I knew for a fact that much of it never saw the light of day in the USA. We also flew in and out of many countries in the ME, from Turkey, Iran, to Saudi Arabia, etc.. Then I was shipped to Vietnam. One of my additional duties required me to read world wide intelligence reports. WOW! My eyes became even wider!
We flew combat support missions nearly every day and had moments of sheer terror. Yet it was a beautiful, lush country and I truly liked the people. One day we flew low and slow over a particularly beautiful green village with the usual rice paddies, a variety of wonderful fruit trees and seemingly happy families. The next day our flight plan took us over the same area. I was looking forward to gazing down upon that small Eden-like place. Yet nothing was left but blackened soil, and not a human or a tree to be found. I finally had an epiphany! It was like pulling a tooth, but at last I understood that, with the exception of the then USSR China, ET AL, the USA is the most propagandized nation in the world, and we the sheeple are surely the most unaware population in the Western World.

[Halsey]

ouch ouch....do­uble ouch....th­is post is so right on the mark....ou­r system of life might look okay, even enviable, on the surface...­but the madness beneath...­. yup...as a society we've crossed that line into insanity..­..we ignored the wolf at the door, hoping it would move on to the next house if we just didn't let it in...but it's like Poe's Black Death...it got through anyway... WE elected many corrupt people, WE look the other way when American children go hungry and without healthcare­... and today..."t­hey" are us...

so so...what shall we do? we've got to get rid of the financial power structure.­..it's beyond fixing...
I'm sad.

[FredBrighton]

WE will do nothing. We have no power to do anything. The sociopaths in power will fail eventually and the American Empire will burn and crash, leaving a few million people with no real wealth unless they own a little farm or something. WE will emigrate to countries where votes are counted, if they will have us. The rest of us will scrounge for food, accept world charity, and wonder how it happened. Unless there is some justice, in which case we will track down the bastards that destroyed America with their greed and incompetence and put their heads on tall spikes at the American border with Mexico. All empires collapse when the greed gets too great. It's like tectonics, you can't do anything about the forces involved but you hope to avoid the earthquakes and volcanoes.
We need to go back to 1777 and rewrite the papers that defined our country and exclude the very wealthy, make it easier to impeach and require all households to have a single black powder musket to enable a well trained militia for defense, Disband our military, destroy our nukes.

[jmpurser]

Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU!

I've been saying this for about 10 years and suspecting it for 20. Ever since I voted for Reagan twice and then stopped to look at the results.

We are mad. Quite mad. And I see no good way for it to end. The asylum or the knee breakers indeed.

[elmerfude]

I think if you probe deeply enough into this insanity, you will find the main accomplice­--organize­d religion.

[Tubby]

What a load of rubbish! You view America through green (envy) tinted glasses and your vision is what's crazy, not us.

[elmerfude]

I think you proved his point Tubby (pardon the pun).

[kdogg]

I thought about making my own comment but decided that I couldn't say it better then you. We have lost any idea of reality in this country and we actively work become crazier and crazier.

[Tayo]

Very, very refreshing observations. I sincerely hope that this sickness hasn't gone beyond cure.

[mommadona]

Uh....we didn't start it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKu2QaytmrM

[Thabit]

I agree with the writer of this and i have looked at it this way a long time but when you try to say it to anyone else they look at you like you're nuts . And he says it much better than i do

[Rogan]

You've very exactingly outlined the issue(s?) that keep me from going out, or making new friends, or engaging any more than I absolutely have to, in American society, these days. Americans frighten me. With a very few exceptions, my closest friends, I no longer recognize myself in my countrymen. I hope it all changes. I'm so sick of being scared.

[JimmyGreenwood]

Thanks for writing this. I believe all of this but very few people I know will have a conversation about it. The ones who will are survivalists, waiting for the apocalypse. There must be some hope, somewhere, there was just an historical presidential election, but everything you say is true. Denial is a very difficult thing to dismantle. The only thing powerful enough to do that is reality, which has a nasty habit of humbling even the most powerful humans.

[image18301]

We've lost our common sense. You can see it in our judicial system, government, schools, everywhere. If we could transport people from the 40's and 50's and bring them to our time, they would most certainly consider the country insane.

Best post I've read on the Huffington yet.

[anachoret]

Best post I have read in a long, long time, Mr. Welsh.

While you got the definition of insanity, the US seems to do things that would make one think we were insane BEFORE we do them over and over again. But that doesn't stop us from foing it over and over again. Considering how well it's worked for the Masters of the Universe, One might think that they've discovered lying is easy and it works... So why stop selling when people are still buying it?

[FearlessFreep]

Thank you, Ronald Reagan.