I love many things about the US and I often feel sorry for those people, including several of my cousins, who live there. Because the media is so tightly controlled by the interests of advertisers their democracy is unable to protect the interests of most ordinary people. I think that’s why they still have such a primitive and brutal penal system, a health care system that could have been dreamed up by a 19 century mill owner and a level of public debate that would embarrass even the semiliterate inhabitants of the worst public housing projects in Paris.
I have always had the feeling that they only had themselves to blame for this situation, but watching The State Within on television this week I started to realise that the United Kingdom might have more to gain from, and should possibly take more responsibility for, the plight of the US than I had previously thought. After all, we benefit a great deal from a mighty economy full of eager consumers who all happen to speak the language of our ancestors.
Americans work much harder than British workers and they get shorter holidays. Their social conditions could be said to be harsher than those over here, that’s why their law enforcement needs to be so much more repressive. Americans have been forced to give up many freedoms that we enjoy, in particular those relating to Unions and striking, that’s why their working lives are so much harder. In fact, you could argue that 1776 didn’t change things as dramatically as might have first appeared. You’ve still got the colonists toiling away while those back home have it easy. No wonder they dislike us so much, no wonder the villains in films are always British. You can’t really blame them.
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Jon, you really shouldn’t feel so sorry for us. We are running away with the world leaving the rest of the old Empire behind in the dark ages. Americans are fat, complacent, and generally lazy, spending most of their off-time on a couch watching reality shows because their own lives are so pathetically boring and sad. But they are generally pretty well off. You should check your facts first as strikes, public comment and national news are as vibrant -or not- as the old Empire. I suspect your news is as sensored as here (we have Pacifica Radio for the alternative)but anyone who wants to really see what is going on in the world reads Google News.
Hey, Andrea and I are thinking of visiting this winter. I know it’s a lousy time but she is pregnant again and we want to travel before she resembles more Americans. We would love to visit you and Carol and the rest. It isn’t certain yet but there is an outside chance. Hope your Christmas goes well and you find the right curling iron.
Love, TOBY
I know a lot of people in the US believe this. When I read things like this list of execution methods used in the US I can’t help feeling that the dark ages left the Old World on the Mayflower and are still thriving over there.
Lethal injection: Authorised in 37 states
Electrocution: In 10 states (sole method in Nebraska)
Gas chamber: In five states (all of which have lethal injection as alternative)
Hanging: Only in New Hampshire and Washington
Firing squad: In Idaho and Oklahoma
Do you know how many European countries use the death penalty? None.
The US media might seems free, it isn’t. In my opinion Al Jazeera is currently the benchmark for the most dramatically independent news source in the world. How many Americans would consider its coverage comparable with any mainstream US media? I think most people would consider it a very marginal news source. But every independent analysis of bias in the media has shown Al Jazeera to be more impartial than any US news channel. People in the US think they are getting impartial news because they think the news they get is impartial and so any news that doesn’t look like their news must be biased. It’s a circular argument.