American Values

[nadinbrzezinski]

We are told (at least those of you who grew here... and at one time this was also part of the message exported about the US) that being honest is an American value. If you never lie, cheat and always tell the truth you will be appreciated by your society, After all, Washington did chop the cherry tree, and then when confronted by his father, he could not tell a lie. We all know the myth was created by Washington Irving, a man who understood the need to create myths around the founder of the country. But the core fo the story, whether mythical or not (After all it was chock full of holes) was that honesty will get you far.

Well in today's US honesty is no longer a core value. I have found that to my detriment. I am honest, to a fault. I tell people what I think about them to their faces. After all, if you are not willing to tell somebody what you truly think, but are willing to go and tell otters, you are a coward in my view... and cowardice has become a core American value too. Oh and by the way, now people are blaming me for oops standing for myself. So standing up is also no longer an American value. I am telling this story to illustrate the sad place we find ourselves as a nation.

The other core value that the modern country lives on is that corporations, does not matter if this is a mom and pop store, or Walmart, are good and pure, but people are inferior and people should never be trusted. Yep, the business involved in my foot accident has been in some trouble (or rather it became obvious) from the beginning of the year. the problems are systemic... deep and have to do with management or rather very poor management. Somehow since I stood for myself and asked for information that they SHOULD HAVE, and then decided NOT to shop there anymore I am the evil one. As I said people have no value, but corporations do. (one of the 14 points of fascism, and it has been internalized by many folks)

I am leaving many details of the story, such as location or name of store out... for obvious reasons, but it is indicative of where we are as a country.

We are back in the good ol' days when assertive women are uppity bitches... same assertiveness in men is called an asshole and it is an asset. (In truth I don't believe we ever left that place, we just paid lip service that we did, and it dovetails perfectly with the 14 points of fascism)

We are also now living in a country were honesty is paid lip service too. Truth be told the core value of the country now is lying... and it starts at the top.

Another core value is not taking responsibility, pass the buck, it is somebody else's fault, even if in this comedic case I have no say in the ruining of this business. One person not shopping at a business, even a small one, will not have that that great of an effect, especially one that has been around for over 25 years. Now a group will... but that group has to be significant, and the loss of customers started well before January 1st, and it has to do with lack of stocking what people want... but somehow it is my fault, and loyal customers are saying this. We are indeed living in a fictional reality, where reality based has nothing to do with perceived reality... and you can take this to the bank, when the neocons said that they were the ones making reality, they knew what they spoke off...

Americans are also scared of people who are honest, and who speak out. So another core value is submissiveness.

Of course one value going back to the colonial period (Oh students of the Mass Bay colony will know exactly why I write this) is how to screw others, and how to screw them well. This is why contract law in this country is as advanced as it is. They will do all they can to screw you over... and then do it again. and again.

Is this a land of opportunities, I fear it used to be... It can be once again, but I fear not in my lifetime.

And of course then we go into freedom as a value... we truly pay lip service to that one. If we did not, we would be exercising those rights the folks in charge are assiduously taking away, in the name of freedom of course. We also would not go after people for being honest and speaking freely.

So here is where we are... and we talk about elections all we want... but until certain values come back such as honesty and freedom... we are just spinning our wheels. The values of the fascist state are now ingrained, deeply, in the population. I fear we will need something akin to denazification to clean up this mess.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. kick

[theanarch]

2. oh, i don't know...

...lying, cheating, slander/libel, propaganda, manipulation, violence, repression, etc. were staples of American life virtually from the beginning of colonization; the myths about our virtues have always been that: myths. Problem is, most of US are sufficiently intellectually underdeveloped, morally obtuse and emotionally shallow to believe our own propaganda. The one condition we most have to overcome to reclaim our values is capitalism: greed, selfishness and self-aggrandizement, the winning-is-everything mentality, etc. A good place to start is by turning off the tv--for ever and for good--and start detoxing ourselves of all the identity-warping, ethics-eroding messages the medium saturates our consciousness's with. And it was Parson Weems (a Washington-worshiping myth-maker) who invented all those silly tales, not Washington Irving...

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. The point is that fascism is now internalized

so we can spin our wheels all we want... until we make certain changes... adn by the way honesty was apreciated at one point in US history... the last 30 years (starting with reagan) there has been a concerted effort to raise a fascist state. I tell you, they have succeeded.