Global-Post: Post-election, the rest of the world marvels at Americans' avoidance of their problems.

[pampango]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/101103/us-election-discourse-economy

Until the American electorate grows up and acts like the mature society it used to be — accepting that governing happens in real time and no one can undo the current mess in a year or two — this will be a foreign country to those of us who have lived away a long time. More dangerously, it will be foreign in the sense of unknown to the rest of the planet who watch the United States aghast at how the leader of the world has been transformed into a squabbling, dissension wracked polity, unconfident and fearful and unable to find its way out of the dark.

In Britain, even the conservative press has found the Tea Party and Republican Party difficult to understand. They happily bash President Barack Obama on their opinion pages while trying to understand how the political discourse in this time of crisis could be so puerile. The days when British conservatives and American conservatives walked the same walk and talked the same talk are long gone.

Today's Conservative Party-led coalition government in the United Kingdom would not waste a moment campaigning against the idea of man-made climate change — indeed it campaigned last spring on how to grow the economy by funding solutions to the problem. Gay lifestyles? That's a non-issue, there are a number of out gay men in the British cabinet.

Science using stem cells and human fetuses? Prime Minister David Cameron's son suffered horribly in his brief life from a variety of nervous system disorders. Cameron would not stand in the way of any research that might help future sufferers of Ivan's myriad problems. The Conservatives would not try to repeal the National Health Service. They campaigned on a promise to save it from budget cuts.

[DFW]

1. I got enough of that today here in Belgium. German radio wants to interview me live tomorrow.

I don't know what to tell them, other than a goodly number of my fellow countrymen are very very stupid.

[gateley]

3. And tell them that a goodly number of your fellow countrymen are disgusted

and perplexed (and embarrassed) as well! :patriot:

[DFW]

5. Will do!

I certainly intend to let Germany know that I am not one lone voice in the wilderness, and that
plenty of Americans are disgusted by last night's results (and the money that was used to buy them).

[gateley]

7. You'll do great! I know we're in good hands! :-) I'd say post the audio but

only German-speaking DUers would be able to understand it. :7

[DFW]

23. It's done

I said that for the first time, not only politicians are for sale, that has happened often enough. But now, the politics it self is for sale.

My wife listened to the broadcast (along with a few million Germans), and said that I was not particularly diplomatic. I said that I was not feeling particularly diplomatic!

[apocalypsehow]

24. I'd appreciate a link to this broadcast. Thanks! n/t.

[DFW]

27. So would I

I don't know if WDR podcasts their shows.

WDR 5, Morgenmagazin or Morgenecho.

Today's date, 7:05 AM

WDR= Westdeutsche Rundfunk, Köln

[EFerrari]

6. You might remind them that propaganda works

and that our media is held by about self interested four corporations. :shrug:

[gateley]

8. Yes - good point. They CERTAINLY know that propaganda works! nt

[me b zola]

20. Propaganda via marketing

IMO politicos have found through polling that the hugest swath of people that can--and will--tilt any given election aren't very (if at all) familiar with the issues, but are swayed by basic marketing/branding devices.

[gateley]

2. Excellent article. We should send a copy to everybody in Washington DC. Put

one on each of their desks in the Senate and the House and the Oval Office.

[CTyankee]

10. Nobody will care. As a nation, we just don't get it.

Subjecting health care to the market system doesn't, and never could, work. This is just and exercise in futility, IMO. What in the hell are we doing? Why aren't we crying for universal health care so we can compete in the world of business?

[gateley]

13. They're framing it wrong. They're presenting it as being fair and right, rather

than a move that would generate income. That's all they care about.

[donco6]

4. How do they do it in Britain? Their RW press is even worse than ours.

What magical spell corrupts the minds of so many who insist on limiting themselves to Fox news here in the States? The news offerings in Britain are just as bad, but they don't get this huge percentage of viewers like we do here. ??

[Tesha]

17. They also have a functioning left-wing press. (NT)

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. TV is the difference. TV has to be genuinely balanced, and no political ads are allowed in the UK

So yes, while the press is mostly RW, and probably more partisan than Fox News, TV (and radio) are still subject to the equivalent of the Fairness Doctrine in the UK. So the broadcast media is not slanted, and that matters - most tabloids may be RW, but a lot of their readers after mainly after the celebrity and sports stories rather than getting real news from them. When there's a decent TV or radio alternative, they use it.

And you can't buy political broadcast ads. The parties get a limited number of 5 minute 'election broadcast' slots for free, based on some formula of the votes and/or seats they got last time. That means the UK has never had the deluge of election ads the US has had for years, let alone the stuff the Citizens United decision allowed this time.

[donco6]

19. Wow. That makes a lot of sense.

Sure shows what a difference a policy like that can have.

[flamingdem]

9. They'll cut us down to size beginning with currency play from China and Russia

Say hello to an economic meltdown because they think the US is no longer responsible towards finance and loopy people are taking over.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Rand Paul, oh excuse me Senator Rand Paul

will lead the way.

He has that power now... ugh

[gateley]

14. I don't think he'll have much power - I'm guessing most of his fellow Republicans

don't think much of him. He's a Libertarian, not a corporatist.

[Fumesucker]

22. Once the gravy train starts rolling for Rand Paul I suspect the libertarianism will get canned..

I don't see Rand as being nearly the libertarian that his father is and Ron isn't a full blown libertarian, on the abortion issue for instance Paul Sr is far from a doctrinaire libertarian.

[gateley]

29. Well you have a good point -- 'once the gravy train starts rolling'... nt

[Solly Mack]

11. k/r

[Jennicut]

15. Our tea partiers make David Cameron look sane.

[Rex]

16. Pretty pathetic ain't it? In 50 years we go from world hero to global zero.

What a train wreck.

[leftstreet]

21. K&R

[Warren DeMontague]

25. Yeah, well, they kicked the Puritans out.

They probably had some decent reasons for doing so.

[kath]

26. Another article from the UK, posted here earlier:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/24
Is America Flirting With Fascism?
Mark Seddon on November 3, 2010, 1:32 PM
To watch from afar as the drama of the US mid term elections unfolded as a Brit who has lived in America, likes America and likes Americans, is deeply frustrating. At one level there is puzzlement, at another there is deep concern and still at another there is a feeling that to comment is to intrude on family business, and I am not of the family. I recall a British newspaper, The Guardian, clumsily intervening some years ago, urging Americans to vote for Democrats in swing Congressional districts that that paper’s pointy heads had decided would call the election. Not surprisingly, this was exploited to the hilt by the Republicans – and that was before the Tea Party. After all, who wants a bunch of Brits sticking their oars in two centuries on since the Red Coats were marched into the sea?

That said the perversity on show in recent weeks begs a whole series of questions. Questions that are being asked by many of America’s friends in the World, who are now fearful that the country harbours a form of raucous corporate fascism that is feeding from the resentment of a section of middle America that is losing its sense of identity and purpose. These questions – and they are asked in a genuine spirit of inquiry so as to attempt to understand what is happening in America – may seem starkly obvious to some. The answers could provide ammunition for those who really do hold to the mission of the founding fathers;

*How is it that the US Supreme Court ruled to allow donors to political parties and campaigns complete anonymity? Millions of dollars have been poured into attack ads, most of which are utterly unhinged and bathed in a ferocious negativity. These ads were invariably attributed to all sorts of innocuous, patriotic sounding organisations, that most Americans have probably never heard of. Is anything being done to reverse that Supreme Court ruling? Is it possible? Who funds these ads and why?

*Candidates spent millions trying to be elected. The defeated Republican candidate in California spent $160 million in her failed campaign. Let me write that again $160 million! What on earth is going on? Are there no restrictions at all on what can be spent? Why haven’t legislators tried to break this pork barrel funding and spending scam? Or are they all in it together?

{more}

[treestar]

28. The M$M won't cover this

So offensive to the willfully and happily ignorant.

Rec'd.