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Discussion:
The Eagle's Shadow
Posts 1 to 4 from a total of 13
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The Eagle's Shadow
[23-Aug-2002]
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posted by: josemetra
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The great Satan
Book Reviews
Ziauddin Sardar
Monday 26th August 2002
The Eagle's Shadow: why America fascinates and infuriates the world
Mark Hertsgaard Bloomsbury, 219pp, £12.99
ISBN 0747560536
The events of 11 September 2001 may be etched on everyone's memory, but for Mark Hertsgaard, a more important date is 26 October 2001, the day President Bush signed the infamous "USA Patriot Act". The new law defined "terrorism" in such broad terms that an American citizen who, for example, made a donation to a foreign anti-abortion group could be found guilty of aiding terrorism. It gave sweeping authority to the police and security agencies to search the homes of citizens, tap their phones, check their bank accounts, and even examine public library records to see what they were reading. It deprived roughly 20 million non-citizens of all their rights; some found themselves indefinitely detained on a mere hint of suspicion.
What kind of state would deny such basic civic freedoms? A state where discussion of domestic and foreign policy is conspicuous by its absence, where criticism is seen as treachery, and where the signature cultural activities are shopping, obsession with celebrity and watching junk television. Not surprisingly, Hertsgaard is concerned at what is happening to his beloved America.
He sets out to travel the world to discover why people hate America. He talks to miners in Cape Town, businessmen in Beijing, intellectuals in Paris and cab drivers in London, and concludes that globalisation is a euphemism for Americanisation. The further he travels from Europe, the more pronounced the hatred becomes. The American dialect is the tongue of international business, tourism and communication. American behaviour, fast food, jeans, television and consumption habits are in vogue everywhere. More and more nations have been forced to adopt a free-market, pro-corporate ideology that is making the rich richer and the poor poorer. But traditional societies, local cultures and norms are under threat.
Everywhere, he is asked more or less the same questions. How can America put a man on the moon and whole libraries on to computer chips, but still fear debate about evolution in its public schools? How can Americans be so materially rich and so lacking in family and community ties? So inundated with time-saving devices, yet perpetually stressed and hurried?
Hertsgaard has no real answers to these questions. He presents a set of blots on the landscape, but fails to connect them into a coherent analysis of US foreign policy, or America's role in the IMF, World Bank or World Trade Organisation, or US military intervention in far-off places. He tells us nothing about how the US domination of merchandised, global popular culture removes the space for other cultures to exist and express themselves, and let their ideas flower. Instead, he chooses to look at America itself and examine what is really wrong with the first hyperpower in history.
As a journalist and broadcaster, Hertsgaard knows America well, and he excels in outlining its intrinsic flaw. The US economy and political system, he tells us, are biased in favour of the rich. One in three Americans earns $8, or less, an hour; 40 per cent of American children live below or near the poverty line. Although half of all Americans invest in the stock market, around 90 per cent of all stock is actually owned by the richest 10 per cent of households. By 1999, Bill Gates alone owned as much wealth as the bottom 40 per cent of Americans. When Enron collapsed, its workers and average stockholders lost an estimated $25-$50m worth of pension funds, but the company executives had already walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars. So to project America as a land of equal opportunity and plenty for all is a cruel hoax. In reality, America is segregated by class and race.
The US press, Hertsgaard suggests, is "stenographer to American power". It peddles half-truths and pseudo-news that at once entrance and demean the public, encouraging it to be ignorant and stupid.
Hertsgaard pitches his prose at the level of his American audience. This is a simple book, simply written. But his conclusions will make grim reading for most Americans. "Our foreign policy", he states unequivocally, is "arrogant and cruel"; "our consumerist definition of prosperity is killing us and the planet". US democracy is an embarrassing den of corporate lobbyists, entrenched bureaucrats, egotistical multimillionaires and legal bribery. The US economy is aggregating wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Yet, to top it all: "Our business and political elite are insisting that our model should also be the world's model."
The only defence Hertsgaard offers is ignorance. Americans, he asserts repeatedly, are fair-minded people. The trouble is that none of Hertsgaard's findings is new; they are made at frequent intervals by increasing numbers of American writers. William J Lederer and Eugene Burdick's novel The Ugly American, a slashing expose of US foreign policy, was first published in 1958, and became a bestseller. Michael Moore's Stupid White Men, containing much of the same evidence as the Hertsgaard, topped the bestseller lists in America this summer. Ignorance is a threadbare excuse.
The real question is why abundant evidence fails to stir the American public consciousness, why Americans refuse to question their lifestyle and to accept responsibility for how their government operates in their name. The answer lies not in facts, but analysis. Hertsgaard is important proof, yet again, that being critical of America is neither an unAmerican activ-ity nor outright anti-Americanism. He merely begs the question of why criticism fails to dent US policy and shape public discussion of it, let alone prompt change. This is the real enigma that Americans should be pondering - for their own sake.
This article first appeared in the New Statesman. For the latest in current and cultural affairs subscribe to the New Statesman print edition.
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Re: The Eagle's Shadow
[23-Aug-2002]
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posted by: formigha
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Hace dos dias pusieron una peli en la tele. La novia del protagonista queria irse a estudiar a Paris y le decia a su compañero que la acompañase. El decia que no queria ir porque en Francia odiaban a los americanos; ella le respondia que no era cierto, que solo odiaban a los americanos estupidos. Yo no soy francesa pero opino lo mismo, me caen mal los americanos estupidos, los franceses estupidos, los arabes estupidos , los israelis estupidos....hasta los argentino y españoles estupidos...
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Re: The Eagle's Shadow
[23-Aug-2002]
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posted by: calam
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At least, the book reported the us as a totalitarian power. But of course, it failed to link this totalitarian to the inner nature of democracy. It would explain many things.
The question about the standard of living is amusing(40 per cent of the kids bla bla bla...) since in the us, barely 25 % of the possible population elects their representants. It let quite a lot of room for the democracy to run as it runs usually. Those people, excluded from the us affluency know it is no use voting for them : the country will rock the same way.
The ignorance trick is a usual one in democracy: the question should be why in a country like the us where sources of knowledge are so easily available that population stays ignorant? The us are not a deep remote place as an amazonian jungle. The us democratic people doesnt want to know because there is no problem for them, there are only problems for the others who are urged to adapt (understand adopt the us way of life and forget about who they are) so why should the us question themselves?
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Re: The Eagle's Shadow
[26-Aug-2002]
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posted by: KatyaNY
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<<<the question should be why in a country like the us where sources of knowledge are so easily available that population stays ignorant?>>>
Americans are caught up in their daily lives. They are obsessed with their "careers", and with media/culture inspired ambitions of wealth and "stardom", whether a conscious goal or a fantasy. Also, American life is very comfortable compared to the rest of the world (I've lived a long time in the US and a long time in Europe). That comfort can so easily lull one into apathy, or create an illusion that all is well.
Actually, to be fair, the average middle class person works long hours, with barely enough time to see their family. Maintaining family, mortgages, etc. on not very high salaries leaves little time or energy to wonder about the state of the country. Since the message in US society is to always do better to "keep up with the Jones", there is that constant pressure.
America is a wonderful country in many ways, but I think Americans are a little blinded by the messages they receive, mostly though the media.
Someone on a US news program, one of a group of young Americans who had been kidnapped by Muslim extremists, recently said that the American media did not give a truthful picture of world events and attitudes. He said he had done much research into the Muslim world, and the information he received was quite unlike that he'd received in the US. He told the audience, "try to find other news sources besides US news sources if you want to have a balanced information". His interviewer looked a bit uncomfortable, then ended the interview.
Also, America is huge. There are many brilliant people here, with many brilliant ideas and accomplishments (not everyone is culturally/intelectually out-of-it by any means---that's a silly stereotype). Perhaps the diversity of ideas and opinions, and the enormity of the country and the population, make it more difficult to form an activist whole.
One more aspect of the US that might prevent a cohesive cooperation is the fact that it's people are quite individualistic, as well as mobile. With mobile individuals you can't have much "tribal" cohesiveness.
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