[R-G] Brian Eno on US Iraqi Policies

[DavidMcR at aol.com]

Thanks much - will pass on,
David

<< Subject: Brian Eno on US Iraqi Policies
 >> Date:    Fri, 31 Jan 2003 20:21:23 -0700
 >> 
 >> 
 >> 
 >> The following article was written by musician Brian Eno and appeared in
 >> TIME EUROPE. A group of us are sending it to friends and colleagues in
 >> the US and Canada and North Americans worldwide in the hope that we can
 >> publicize what many Europeans are thinking about the relentless drive
 >> to war.  We would appreciate if you could also forward it to
 >> residents of the US and North Americans worldwide.
 >> 
 >> As you will see, Eno writes as someone who loves the US and a lot of
 >> what it stands for, so there is praise among the criticism.
 >> 
 >> If you agree with the sentiments, we would really appreciate it if you
 >> send it on.
 >> 
 >> The U.S. Needs to Open Up to the World
 >> To this European, America is trapped in a fortress of arrogance and
 >> ignorance
 >> 
 >> BY BRIAN ENO
 >> 
 >> Europeans have always looked at America with a mixture of fascination
 >> and puzzlement, and now, increasingly, disbelief. How is it that a
 >> country that prides itself on its economic success could have so many
 >> very poor people? How is it that a country so insistent on the rule of
 >> law should seek to exempt itself from international agreements? And how
 >> is it that the world's beacon of democracy can have elections dominated
 >> by wealthy special interest groups?
 >> 
 >> I could fill this page with the names of Americans who have influenced,
 >> entertained and educated me. They represent what I admire about
 >> America: a vigorous originality of thought, and a confidence that
 >> things can be changed for the better.
 >> 
 >> That was the America I lived in and enjoyed from 1978 until 1983. That
 >> America was an act of faith - the faith that "otherness" was not
 >> threatening but nourishing, the faith that there could be a country big
 >> enough in spirit to welcome and nurture all the diversity the world
 >> could throw at it.
 >> 
 >> But since Sept. 11, that vision has been eclipsed by a suspicious,
 >> introverted America, a country-sized version of that peculiarly
 >> American form of ghetto: the gated community. A gated community is
 >> defensive. Designed to keep the "others" out, it dissolves the rich web
 >> of society into a random clustering of disconnected individuals. It
 >> turns paranoia and isolation into a lifestyle.
 >> 
 >> Surely this isn't the America that anyone dreamed of; it's a last
 >> resort, nobody's choice. It's especially ironic since so much of the
 >> best new thinking about society, economics, politics and philosophy in
 >> the last century came from America.
 >> 
 >> Unhampered by the snobbery and exclusivity of much European thought,
 >> American thinkers vaulted forward - courageous, innovative and
 >> determined to talk in a public language. But, unfortunately, over the
 >> same period, the mass media vaulted backward, thriving on increasingly
 >> simple stories and trivializing news into something indistinguishable
 >> from entertainment. As a result, a wealth of original and subtle
 >> thought - America's real wealth - is squandered.
 >> 
 >> This narrowing of the American mind is exacerbated by the withdrawal of
 >> the left from active politics. Virtually ignored by the media, the left
 >> has further marginalized itself by a retreat into introspective
 >> cultural criticism. It seems content to do yoga and gender studies,
 >> leaving the fundamentalist Christian right and the multinationals to do
 >> the politics. The separation of church and state seems to be breaking
 >> down too. Political discourse is now dominated by moralizing, like
 >> George W. Bush's promotion of American "family values" abroad, and
 >> dissent is unpatriotic. "You're either with us or against us" is the
 >> kind of cant you'd expect from a zealous mullah, not an American
 >> President.
 >> 
 >> When Europeans make such criticisms, Americans  assume we're envious.
 >> "They want what we've got," the thinking goes, "and if they can't get
 >> it, they're going to stop us from having it."
 >> 
 >> But does everyone want what America has? Well, we like some of it but
 >> could do without the rest: among the highest rates of violent crime,
 >> economic inequality, functional illiteracy, incarceration and drug use
 >> in the developed world. President Bush recently declared that the U.S.
 >> was "the single surviving model of human progress." Maybe some
 >> Americans think this self-evident, but the rest of us see it as a
 >> clumsy arrogance born of ignorance.
 >> 
 >> Europeans tend to regard free national health services, unemployment
 >> benefits, social housing and so on as pretty good models of human
 >> progress. We think it's important - civilized, in fact - to help people
 >> who fall through society's cracks. This isn't just altruism, but an
 >> understanding that having too many losers in society hurts everyone.
 >> It's better for everybody to have a stake in society than to have a
 >> resentful underclass bent on wrecking things.
 >> 
 >> To many Americans, this sounds like socialism, big government, the
 >> nanny state. But so what? The result is: Europe has less gun crime and
 >> homicide, less poverty and arguably a higher quality of life than the
 >> U.S., which makes a lot of us wonder why America doesn't want some of
 >> what we've got.
 >> 
 >> Too often, the U.S. presents the "American way" as the only way,
 >> insisting on its kind of free-market Darwinism as the only acceptable
 >> "model of human progress."
 >> 
 >> But isn't civilization what happens when people stop behaving as if
 >> they're trapped in a ruthless Darwinian struggle and start thinking
 >> about communities and shared futures? America as a gated community
 >> won't work, because not even the world's sole superpower can build
 >> walls high enough to shield itself from the intertwined realities of
 >> the 21st century.
 >> 
 >> There's a better form of security: reconnect with the rest of the
 >> world, don't shut it out; stop making enemies and start making friends.
 >> Perhaps it's asking a lot to expect America to act differently from all
 >> the other empires in history, but wasn't that the original idea?
 >> 
 > -- 
  >>