The Ugly America

"You really do hate America!" This was the parting shot from a man I had just debated on a television show shortly before the invasion of Iraq. Because he's a notorious right-wing blowhard, I laughed it off as the ravings of a crackpot in extremis.

Little did I know...

Soon, those of us who opposed the Iraq war, torture, "extraordinary rendition," Guantanamo, spying on innocent Americans and other illegal tools in the Cheney/Bush black bag began to hear variations on that theme from people one would have expected to know better. And it's gotten worse as they've become more desperate... or do the depths to which we've fallen suggest a fault-line in America's culture?

Only a short time ago we dissenters were called "Saddam-lovers," "America-haters" or, when they really wanted to cut deep, "French!" But that usually came from the relatively unhinged, like my debate-partner. Today, similar imprecations fall readily from the lips of media bloviators while the hoi polloi moves toward lynch-mob tenor with screams of "traitor," "terrorist," "kill him," and "off with his head" - these not aimed at lowly actors but rather the next President of the United States. Worse, it is winked at and ignored, then defended and embraced by some of those from whom we expect better.

As one in the crucible of this volcanic yet potentially transformative moment, John McCain, who claims to put "Country First," should re-read "The Ugly American." Sarah Palin can watch the movie.

Fifty years ago, Eugene Burdick and William Lederer's book exposed the boorish behavior of some of our citizens when abroad, warning that a "mysterious change seems to come over Americans..." when amid people and cultures seen as 'different.' While the ensuing half-century proved those in developing countries to be neither less intelligent, less capable, nor less interested in improving their lives than human beings anywhere, this breed of Americans, inclined to "isolate themselves socially," per Burdick and Lederer, seems to have turned inward, chanting "USA, USA!"

As the world prospered behind their backs, this insular strain of American metastasized into swaggering jingoes full of Cold War machismo, content to wave the flag and "Go for the gold." For them, the collapse of the Evil Empire proved the world's sole Superpower could do as it damned well pleased: "We're Number One," baby! Anybody who doesn't like it should get the hell out of the way.

"[L]oud and ostentatious," per the book, this parochial group bequeathed its "mysterious change" to generations of Know-Nothings who stuck to their own, seeing 'difference' as a threat. Dumbed-down by television and wary of anyone lacking sufficient fervor for their triumphant "Christian nation," they made those of different color, heritage, or belief into "the other," a practice encouraged by coded appeals to racism from would-be leaders. With Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and "silent majority" setting the stage, Reagan's "Welfare Queens" and Bush the First's "Willie Horton" spread the contagion while conferring it legitimacy.

Embraced as true conservatives and stoked by hate-radio millionaires, these changelings seduced the Republican Party, laid claim to the flag and launched a "culture war." Adopted by anti-government hucksters, empire-seekers and profligate free-marketeers, they divided the nation with a 'God and Country' ethos that declared the Bible inerrant, reviled homosexuality, "permissiveness," liberalism and critical thinking, denied women equal rights, children any at all, and cowed the media into submission.

For them, the horror of 9/11 lay at the feet of the enemy within - the ACLU, abortionists, pagans, gays and lesbians, secularists. And a stunned public, reeling from the assault and sinking into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, was led into a flag-waving frenzy of revenge-seeking and other-hating that targeted "Rag-heads" and "sand-niggers."

Drunk with power, this mob took heart from W's "you're either with us or with the terrorists," their malignant hostility dividing us more sharply at each iteration, until the enemy became the world of Islam and anyone who disagreed. Forsaking constitutional freedoms in favor of "security," they turned our very nation inside out, with Americans pitted against one another in states red and blue.

And today, while some dream of change, a perfect storm of cultural division, failed leadership, lost principles, military disaster and economic collapse have ripped the mask away, exposing a virus that has undermined and rendered quaint American values of tolerance, generosity, equality and fairness, replacing them with chauvinism, avarice, confusion, fear and despair.

But struggles that have trampled the principles urging America toward greatness are not new. That they have not destroyed us but rather helped us grope toward maturity is due to some who have called on our better angels and re-inspired the triumph of decency that ennobles our promise. Even with chaos at the doorstep people look for hope, for change, for reason to believe that the America of song and story persists.

Yet today, unable to rise to the challenge of hope, would-be-president McCain chooses expediency over country, placing the priestess of parochialism, a barb-tongued, inanity-prone neophyte, a heartbeat away from his Oval Office. Schooled in "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" and "American Idol," she energizes the pitchfork mob, dividing "real America" from the rest, reviving faint echoes of white superiority and "manifest destiny" as her sponsor deafens himself to it all.

This failure of leadership affirms the ugly America, the misanthrope nation. Yet the heartbeat of promise persists. There is hope. There is truth. If the people demand them.

Mike Farrell, co-chair emeritus of the Southern California Committee of Human Rights Watch and President of Death Penalty Focus, is the author of "Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist."

Comments

[Social Construct]

All I can say is that the spirit of Joe McCarthy lives and breathes life into what is the ugliest of humanity; the desire to exert absolute power over one's fellows.

[IowaGirl]

Very eloquent summary and analysis of the sorry, frightening situation in our country. As comprehensive as it is, I would add other factors to the paralysis of Americans' thinking ability, e.g., an education system that fails to teach kids to think. It may be because of underfunding, the social pathologies from home that permeate the classrooms, or the teaching to the test that No Child Left Behind has decreed, but the results are kids who are not able to learn and think on their own. Perfect stooges for the Sarah Palins of the world. Also, you have to read books to be knowledgeable. You can't rely on the media or even the Net for all your information, it's always going to be insufficient. Book-reading is apparently something an awful lot of Americans don't do.

I hope Mike Farrell is giving this as a speech in as many places as he can--it reads like one, and would no doubt horrify a lot of people who have never put 2 and 2 together like he has. Many good people are too busy and uninformed to figure out why they have been led so seriously astray under the Republicans, their rightist evangelical churches, Wall Street, and the other moneychangers.

[thedirtman]

The good guys love America and love civilization too.

[Pulemerci]

You call Governor Palin a neophyte? What is the freshman senator from Illinois? Please list which major accomplishments Obama has achieved that impress you most. Not change and hope. Real accomplishments from his record of public service.

[MasterfullyInept]

Easy enough if you really want to know..

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/10/10532/8283/610/533309

Read that
Seriously
My personal favorite is Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006
I sure had a good laugh a month or so back when Governor Palin pledge to make the McCain Palin administrations federal budgets available online.Thing is see Senators Obama and Coburn got a bill through congress to do that very thing in 2006.

The site is here.

http://www.usaspending.gov/

I hope you check it out.

[Pulemerci]

Did you know the sponsors of that bill were Senators Coburn, Obama, Carper and McCain?

[kjstjohn]

Dems have their own code. "Neophyte" means can't form a sentence or engage in complex thought. An immature mind.

[darker]

The Republican FRAT BRATS and MALICIOUS MALIGNERS must be outsted from power.
The perversions, unethical and dirty tricks started by Lee Atwater and carried on by KARL ROVE
must STOP.

No more years of Republicans creating and encouraging THE WORSE ELEMENTS in American society
and threatening the survival of America.

Obama-Biden '08

[pbley68]

The Republican Party should be renamed the Conformist Party, because they despise dissent and critical free thinking.

[pup sydney]

Wonderful article. I have tried humbly and unarticulatedly to post on the same vein. I am afraid the underbelly of America so aptly described here gets exposed, yes, but, by its own inert nature, not changed. This will be and is the undoing of this great nation. everyone should work relentlessly to keep thiat monster smaller and smaller or it wil reduce this nation into a geographic large expression (certainly still of capitalistic "usefulness") that happens to sit between two oceans and that bothered Columbus in its way to the Indies.
This is why the rules of democracy of law and justice of decency and ethics have to be the strongest possibel for the democrats. We progressive have to fight for our nation. W eahve to lead in fairness, justice and brotherhood or there is only the abyss becuse the other side is just pulling down an dis no help.

[KickerBoard]

Great article, Mike. You are a true citizen of the world - in addition to being a great American (though Michelle Bachmann would probably disagree!)

[Emerald1943]

Wonderful article! Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it! The article should be required reading to all in the US before this election...if only to "brush them up" on what has happened to us in the last eight years. I have been embarrassed and ashamed for my country.

For the first time in so many years, I have HOPE...and that hope is cenetered on Barack Obama, a man of extraordinary intelligence and grace! God bless him, and God bless the United States of America!

[profus]

Mike Farell: This is a masterpiece of analysis, logic, and historical perspective. Having lived in Germany and Switzerland, it always astonishes me that Americans don't know what the root causes of Fascism are. They think of Holocaust and don't realize that choosing demagoguery over logic, hollering blind "patriotism", us-versus-them herding mentality, and as you put it very well "expediency over country" is at the core of fascism. Europe went through those throws of mindless mob power and paid the ultimate price in World War II.

[greengreenie]

It's not that mysterious. But it is important to see why it isn't mysterious. Please see my post, "Reflection on Mike Farrell's Thoughts on the Mysterious Change."

I'm not so sure it's all that mysterious. Agent provocateurs have been as ubiquitous in America as have been haters and -- what I see as the biggest problem of all -- bystanders. Agent provocateurs and haters you will never be able to change, but it's the bystanders who are really under stress and, since they comprise not the extreme or the corrupted but the majority of citizens, they're the biggest risk factor for this evil cabal. Here's how they're coopted.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/ashleystearns.

I would put my thoughts here, but Huffington only allows me a tiny piece of real estate to do it in and, let's face it -- these are complex issues which require 488 words, not 250.

Thanks, Mike, for your persistent and eloquent witnessing.

[politican]

The comment I heard before we invaded Iraq that made me realize part of our country had gone insane was made by an audience member of Phil Donahue's former show on MSNBC. There were several guests and they were taking questions from the audience.

A woman queried of Susan Sarandon, "Why should we listen to you? You're not even married." To this woman, I suppose, Sarandon was living in sin and that meant she had lost her moral authority to voice an opinion on anything.

I thought she was a nut and laughed it off. I still think that woman's crazy, but I 'm not laughing anymore. After 8 years I've learned that it's not just some people.....HALF of our country is crazy.

[littlebuddylouie]

politician, that's a good example of the kind of logical fallacy that passes for argument or debate in the minds of far too many on the right. I basically walked away from some friends and family members during the lead up to the Iraq war out of frustration with their complete unwillingness to look at the situation objectively. It broke my heart to realize that people would seriously get distracted by idiotic things like renaming French fries instead of considering how their emotions were being manipulated. Sadly, those kinds of tactics have achieved an appearance of legitimacy in part because they have been used so extensively by the demagogues on right wing talk radio, and more recently by outlets like Fox news.

[Oonagh]

I agree, when Bush drew the line in the sand and said "you are either with us or against us" he divided our country.... No one wanted to be a traitor and we ended up in Iraq. Sad. The likes of O'Reilly and Hannity constantly churning out rhetoric for the Bush administration was like an insanity. Hopefully times are changing and that hatred will stop and we all can get on with the job of getting the country back on its feet.

[krocklin]

With the Karl Rove protege crew McCain has running his campaign, they knew they had to keep McCain - and certainly Palin - away from any probing interviews as much as possible for fear their own flimsy allegations would pale besides matters like Liddy, Keating and The Alaskan Independent Party.
Now McCain finally is going to go on Meet the Press - the first time he has subjected himself to such a visible interview in months.
The question is will Brokaw have the integrity to ask him the hard questions AND FOLLOW UP.
Had he not dodged these kind of interviews, the McCain campaign knew that eventually these other matters would start to develop legs like the disgraceful unsubtantial smears against Obama regarding Ayres and ACORN.
The campaign looks over now, but had the media any sense of fairness it would have been over a long time ago.
Though in general the Media and the electorate in general is less tolerant of the Swiftboating strategies used by Republicans, still they were manipulated shamelessly once again.

[BryantG]

A moving and insightful read...thanks.