Getting Real American Foreign Policy, Debt And Health Care
Tonight I heard Chris Hedges on KPFK being interviewed about his new book ‘Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle’.
He was speaking about the lack of intellectual depth in America. He was speaking about the fact that we have become a celebrity worshiping consumer culture. Specifically he says that Americans are deluded by the illusions that they have been sold and that we have become divorced from reality.
He claims that Americans are the most delusional people in the world.
This is serious.
Advertising Age today has released a white paper that says the average American no longer exists. The 2010 census will reveal that the nuclear family of white middle class couples with 2.4 children and a dog with a house in suburbia is simply no longer true. We are a nation of niches. This is the article hyping the paper that is available at a price.
“LOS ANGELES (Adage.com) — The 2010 Census is expected to find that 309 million people live in the United States. But one person will be missing: the average American.
“The concept of an ‘average American’ is gone, probably forever,” demographics expert Peter Francese writes in 2010 America, a new Ad Age white paper. “The average American has been replaced by a complex, multidimensional society that defies simplistic labeling.”
AD AGE WHITE PAPER
2010 America, a new 32-page white paper by Peter Francese, analyzes what the 2010 census will reveal about the changing face of consumers. The message to marketers is clear: No single demographic, or even handful of demographics, neatly defines the nation. There is no such thing as “the American consumer.”
The Census Bureau will begin releasing data in spring 2011. Mr. Francese, demographic trends analyst at WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather, New York, and founder of American Demographics magazine, now offers projections and insight on what the census will show.
Selected findings of 2010 America:
■U.S. households are growing ever more complex and varied.
“This census will show that no household type neatly describes even one-third of households,” Mr. Francese writes. “The iconic American family — married couple with children — will account for a mere 22% of households.”
The most prevalent type of U.S. household? Married couple with no kids, followed closely by single-person households, according to Mr. Francese’s projections.
The Census will give Americans 14 choices to define household relationships. Mr. Francese says this will “enable the Census Bureau to count not only traditional families but also the number and growth since 2000 of blended families, single-parent families and multigenerational families, as well as multiple families doubling up in one household.”
That presents boundless opportunities for marketers and media in how they target and segment households.
■Minorities are the new majority. “One fact says it all,” Mr. Francese writes. “In the two largest states (California and Texas), as well as New Mexico and Hawaii, the nation’s traditional majority group — white non-Hispanics — is in the minority.” And in the nation’s 10 largest cities, he says, “no racial or ethnic category describes a majority of the population.”
Mr. Francese notes how diversity varies greatly by age, “with the younger population substantially more diverse than the old.”
Consider these 2010 projections: 80% of people age 65-plus will be white non-Hispanics. But just 54% of children under age 18 will be white non-Hispanics. Mr. Francese observes: “White non-Hispanics will surely account for fewer than half of births by 2015.”
In 2010, Hispanics will be both the nation’s fastest-growing and largest minority (50 million people).
■The nation is moving. Over the past decade, Mr. Francese says, 85% of the nation’s population growth occurred in the South and West. “During the still-nameless decade from 2000 to 2010,” he writes, “a total of about 3 million people have moved out of the Northeast, and another 2 million have left the Midwest” for the South and West.”
What does this mean? Only that data mining will be more and more prevalent as advertisers work on specializing on the niche they want to reach. The largest group in the immediate future will be the aging baby boomers. This is pretty obvious just look at the prevalence of advertising for Viagra, pills in general, and various insurance plans. It is all about old people and their wealth and health.
But lets drop all this BS. Liz Cheney put it out there on Fox News, she said that the Nobel Committee wants to see the end of US Dominance in the world and that President Obama is a believer in ending US Dominance. She is a firm believer in the USA as the leader of the world. This is clear in statements she makes like “Norwegians sleep well at night because American soldiers protect them.” She was advocating giving the Nobel Peace prize to a mother of a dead veteran. I wonder if she would want Cindy Sheehan to get the Nobel Peace Prize? Cindy is certainly the mother of a Veteran and an advocate of peace.
Steve Clemons of the Washington Note.com is saying that Obama is attempting to revive America’s relevance tonight on MSNBC. This is the establishment position. He is here as the janitorial president to clean up the mess left by Bush Neo-liberalism. The Obama administration is traditional liberalism lite. Because as we all know there is no money left for real Johnson liberal reforms. The Chinese are worried about the USA letting the dollar decline in value. This means very simply that the Chinese are telling Obama that what we need is neo-liberal structural reform. This is the ultimate Irony. Why won’t Obama meet the Dali Lama, the Chinese won’t like it. Why do we care, because the Chinese hold all our debt and if they stopped buying American debt then we would have to pay for our debt from our own economy and guess what? We don’t have an economy, we out sourced it all.
World War Two was a time of greater national debt but it was bought domestically and so when we paid it back we were paying Americans. Now the debt is held by China, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and Great Britain mainly. That means we have to care about what they think. We no longer have a strong domestic manufacturing economy. What we do have is a financial sector that handles other peoples money for them. We have been a safe haven for other peoples money.
America is a big spacious empty country. It has lots of room for rich people from all over the world to stash their wealth. The poor are mostly isolated in the cities and the propaganda machine works better here than in most places. Our media has pushed the concept of believing that a positive attitude and a can do approach will always win out. This is not a bad approach but when it is combined with a pathological fear of being called a looser and a shame at reaching out to others in solidarity because of the dream of individual success, it has crippled all organs of labor unity because of this propaganda. It has turned every attempt to form a viable left in the United States into a joke.
So what do we do? We stop believing the hype. As Chris Hedges says we have to get real. We have to face the facts. We then have to prioritize. America cannot afford a real comprehensive health plan because we are spending too much money on the military and bailing out the banking industry. We need to prioritise do we want to be an oasis for the rich of the world with a little trickle down to the rest of us or do we want real economic democracy? If that is what we want then are we willing to do the work to make it happen? First we have to stop believing the get rich quick hype. We have to form unions and join progressive political groups. We need to boycott and and protest and blockade the business as usual. We need to stop cooperating with the rich and work for our collective benefit.
This does not mean we become jingoistic nationalists. It does mean that we restructure our economy and our laws to benefit the working people and not the multinational corporations. We need to separate the interests of people from that of corporations. They are not the same.
It starts with things like health care for all. And I mean all, including so called illegal immigrants. Poor people are people and deserve to be treated with respect no matter where they are from. The rich have tried to get us to believe that we are a poor nation and need to cut back on who we help. Look at this debate over health care. It has turned into a debate over what we can afford because the President has been convinced that we can not afford any more debt. This is the Chinese, and the other wealthy speaking. It is not the american manufacturers. We could use a weak dollar to export. No it is the investors from other countries who don’t want to see their investment in American debt lose value.
This is crucial for people to understand. American Health Care is being cut back due to the return on investment required by foreign investors. The second factor is that disposable income is going to the war effort. Why because America has made a deal with Israel and India to out flank China in South Asia. India needs oil and if we move out of Afghanistan then India does not have the leverage it needs in the middle east. It then will have to take a more aggressive position vs a vie China and Pakistan. But that forces Pakistan to fund the Taliban and Kashmir’s resistance fighters to counter act India. What Americans don’t realize is the extent to which India is invested in Afghanistan. Pakistan sees this as a pincer movement on the part of India to surround it. Bush made a deal with India, we would support their illegal nuclear program if India would give material support in Afghanistan. Pakistan saw this as an act of aggression and that is the reason why they attack the Indian Embassy in Kabul and attacked Mumbai.
That is why Afghanistan is a trap. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. The Afghanis know the USA is only a temporary visitor. We are not going to stay forever, but we also have to stay because we have made commitments to other powers that mean if we leave that we will have to change those commitments. If India cannot count on the USA then it might return to counting on Russia, or make a deal with China. All this is simply politics.
But it is done behind the backs of the people and we are simply left in the dark. We have to be aware of what our country does in our name and then decide if this is what we really want. India is a democracy. But so is Pakistan. Neither India or Pakistan have oil but they both have a lot of people. Afghanistan has almost nothing we need unless Opium is a vital resource. But it it weak and thus easy to dominate. This ease of entry is the trap because it also makes whomever is there a target. The United States and NATO is the new target. Like the Tar Baby it is seemingly an easy mark, punch it and you get no resistance, but your hand is stuck. Punch with another fist and that hand is stuck. Pretty soon you are totaly immersed in a seemingly non resistant body. How did we get here? The Russians found out. It almost destroyed their military machine. We had that happen once in Vietnam. Does the United States really want to go through that again in Afghanistan? We bribed our way out of Iraq by paying off the tribal leaders who then turned on Al Qaeda. We got lucky there. Why press our luck?
Be aware America. Be aware. The best policy is one of multilateralism. Working with the world. If we don’t then we will be in a subtle war that we cannot win. Just as the Japanese could not overwhelm the Unites States with our superior manufacturing capacity, we are soon running up against the same situation with China only in this case we are the Japanese and they are the Americans. Think about it.
Tags: Health Care And Balance of Payments., India, Pakistan, USA China