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There was a time in the not very distant past when the US leadership class believed the essential vitality of the US cultural political heritage. But judging from the design of my child’s new passport, they no longer trust in its ability to speak for itself. It appears we too are now denizens of the new Baroque, destined, like the Spaniards before us, to live out our decline in a propagandistic netherworld designed (so they tell us) for the benefit of others.

12 August 2008

Who’s Gonna Tell the Kids?

Who is going to fill the American people in on the truth and significance of what’s going on in Georgia? From all indications, no onein the national press corps is up for the job.

The op-ed fraternity, dutifully echoing the Bush administration, is running with a narrative that goes something like this: Georgia, led by an urbane young man (Saakashvili) who seeks nothing more than peace and prosperity for his plucky little nation, has been brutally attacked by a Russian bear bent on meting out wanton destruction. The reporter class, ever attentive to their appointed task of providing evocative vignettes and images to justify the storylines dreamed up by their superiors (a group that includes the aforementioned pundits as well as “government officials” and serious-appearing right wing think tank hacks), has gone about their task with the brainless dedication we’ve come to expect from them. Now its time for Americans to do what most of them believe (in the face of abundant statistical evidence to the contrary) they do best: provide the poor and besieged around the world with “humanitarian aid.”