Why Do People Hate America? American Dream Global Nightmare

If there is a single iconic image the traveller takes home from America it is the flags, the stars and stripes, are everywhere. The enduing image of 'old glory' remains indelibly etched in the memory. They embellish public buildings and private dwellings, the cities and suburbs glow red white and blue, from the richest to the poorest neighbourhood all fly the flag.

The stars and stripes adorn tee shirts, and underpants, they can be sighted on garbage trucks and taxis, and it seems obligatory for public officials to wear them on coat lapels. Go a few miles off the highway to America's heartland, you'll find a myriad of run down poor neighbourhoods, deserted and abandoned by an industry long moved on to richer pastures, its train tracks overgrown, machinery rusting in the sun, paint pealing from a trailer, junk cars outside a home that is little more than a shack. The people, bewildered, at times embittered, somehow forgotten, as if time had passed them by, sit around, poor, over weight, often toothless, yet they display all the trappings of a thriving patriotism. Desperately nationalistic, to the outsider, their pride seems overwhelming; the American Dream preserved and nurtured notwithstanding their obvious inability to share its success and affluence.

First time visitors often shake their heads in disbelief, dumbfounded by inconsistency.

There is no doubting that Americans have a deep-seated allegiance to their country. My country right or wrong seems to be the lot of those who appear in the media. For the Schwarzenegger's, Kissinger's and Halliburton's the Dream is understandable, these are the success stories, yet for those who through no fault of their own fall through the cracks, the Dream melts with the light of day. However, strange as this might seem to the outsider for most Americans the Dream is alive and well, it lives on in myth, and illusion, recreated daily in the smoke and mirrors world of Hollywood and TV sitcoms.

The question is how does the Dream work?

What are the national myths that underpin the Dream?

What are the mechanisms that are able to sustain the Dream amid such obvious poverty?

Why Do People Hate America? and American Dream Global Nightmare go a long way to answering these and other questions; these books offer us are a grand tour through the Hollywood dream world, past and present, from the early 'one reeler' to the latest 'blockbuster', and the embedded cultural myths they foster, they become real in the minds of people. Myths are powerful especially so when artificially created to mould the nation. America, Neal Gabler argues, is the Republic of Entertainment; and the movies are the ultimate cornerstone and weapon of the republic.

Our traveller soon finds many who dream the Dream, quickly one realises that every body in America seems to be waiting or wanting to be discovered, every one from the waitress who serves on tables, to the 'wannabe' actor, to the computer nerd, each believing they possess a certain something that sets them apart from the rest.

Discovery offers escape from the overwhelming fear that exists in reality and myth. Escape would allow them to enter the world of the celebrity, to become one of those 'special people', who have 'made it' in the public eye; freed from the daily drudgery the celebrities income is derived from the function they perform, of attracting attention, selling products, promoting movies, even heading campaigns to raise the public awareness' of illness and diseases, whilst in the pay for the drug companies. However the imagined security is an illusion, the life style of the 'rich and famous' is part of the mythology.

Bound up with the fear myths are vague notions of democracy as a place where life's goodies are the rewards for hard work, it is said, with due diligence, you could even relocate from that ramshackle old log cabin to the White House. Mr Smith Goes To Washington perpetuates the myth that an ordinary, humble person can be elected to office, then faced with injustice can become a powerful force for change, the movies never mention that Washington has over 35,000 registered lobbyists each seeking to exert influence that favour their corporations special interests. That's not part of the script.

Americans like to portray themselves as optimistic, individual and fearless, however to live in America is to be beset by fear, anxiety and insecurity, to be surrounded by potential harm, enemies and evil intent.

America is an unequal society where the wolf has forever hungry, forever scratching at the door. One could be forgiven for believing otherwise. More so as Hollywood is constantly rewriting history.

In the classic Hollywood ending, the hero, the winner rides off into the sunset, the ending are designed to reassure us that no matter how hard life is, no matter what troubles confront us, we too can live happily ever after. In the movies fear and anxiety fall away with the final frame, however as the lights come on and we join the muggers and junkies on the street the essential fear underpinning of the American condition looms large. All part of keeping the nation blissfully ignorant of the real world outside America.

Positing the question Why Do People Hate America? Sarder and Davies reveal the background and context, explore the mechanisms by which America is kept ignorant of the outside world, Hollywood constantly rewrites history, they change the past, writing the scripts so that America can glory in victories that never happened, wars they never fought, inventions they never made, codes they never cracked. The authors examine the disparities of power, wealth, freedom and opportunity must be factored into each and every situation

In my judgement the writers are too charitable when they say 'many of the worst effects of American power are the result of the best intended action'. One has only to sight the imposition of numinous dictators and the CIA assisted extra judicial killings and disappearance of innocent civilians, to say nothing of the invasions, bombings, and blockades of sovereign countries in the name of freedom, a euphemism for the big end of town.

America has at various times been in conflict, economic or military with over half the world. However my criticisms are minor by comparison with the enormous value of these books and the cultural understanding of the cultural vandalism perpetrated by the Hollywood moguls.

Millions of dollars are invested in the movie industry. It feeds the market, as does any other industry, the fact that Hollywood has a greater capacity to shape the market is a sad reflection that violence sells both at home and overseas, it pervades many genres, makes instant movie stars and has been with us from silent movies to the present.

Over time Hollywood has ratcheted up the violence in much the same way as did the Roman Empire, the circuses that 'entertained' the Roman population had their 'tastes' shaped, formed and encouraged, the Roman circus did not start with feeding the Christians to the lions, first it was small animals, followed by larger animals as violence dulled the sensitivities, became acceptable, from then it was onward and upward with ever more horrendous violence and blood shed.

Today violence is America's most heavily exported cultural product, it is the voice America sends around the world as cultural touchstone, the message is mess with us and this is what you can expect, more so in the post 9/11 world of 'unilateralism'. Failure to properly understand the message spells danger, at the first whiff of defiance the Doctor Strangelove's in the Pentagon go into action, with a right arm twitching uncontrollably, their nostrils pulsating, the lust for the for blood is strong, faced with such zeal and gusto even the U.S. Senate crumbles before it.

Remember the movie Saving Private Ryan? Recall the scene where a young American soldier was in a deadly knife fight with a Nazi, the scene had the stench and feel of a rape scene; the American pleads for his life, the German angrily telling him to stop fighting and give in, unspeakable violence and sexual imagery underscores the ease with which filmmakers can manipulate violence, the arena where big-budget movies such as Armageddon, and Independence Day seem guaranteed big returns at the box office.

Our traveller will find many a Forrest Gump believing 'life is just a box of chocolates' a mystery where you never know what you're going to get. The writers liken American life to a hamburger, multi-dimensional, its ingredients standardised, mass-produced a packaged brand, full of stuff you may not want. A true hamburger is a superabundant, multi-layered, a compound entity. It is a powerful metaphor for the America, and such a potent symbol and focus for criticism of America in the rest of the world. The hamburger is more than its ingredients - it is, indeed, a way of life. The hamburger, like American society has at its core the rotting flesh of dead animals, cooked to delay, but not halt, the inevitable process of decay. It personifies the way in which America is taking over the lives of ordinary people in the rest of the world and shrinking their cultural space.

The traveller will find many warm, open and friendly people, yet blissfully unaware of the impact their culture and they governments policies have on the rest of the world.

Many believe American has done no wrong, worst still could do not wrong. That's scary. How can they be so out of step with the rest of the world? And why is it that presumption of innocence and self-righteousness so central to the American self-image? Much of it lays in the stories they tell themselves, they have so absorbed them, they actually believe in the 'all American hero', John Wayne and the Terminator. There are many who like Jerry Falwell, will say "Blow them away in the name of the Lord'

What most people hate is 'America', the political entity, its authoritarian violence, double standards, self-obsessed self-interest, and the ahistorical naivety America equates the Self with the World, is not the people.

To the rest of the world America seem unable to distinguish reality from fantasy and as a result has become dangerous in the extreme when we have the leader of the most powerful war machine on earth saying 'if you are not for us you are against us' thus condemning most of the world to an 'axis of evil' then goes on to say we are going to 'smoke um out', it is only a small step to saying 'a mans got to do what a mans got to do'. That's the power of the movies folks.

What goes on in the minds of these reality-bending leaders?

President Reagan's wife Nancy, would not allow him to make a dissension without first consulting her resident astrologer. President Clinton's wife Hilary claims to have spoken to the dead Eleanor Roosevelt and Gandhi whilst Bill regularly consults the giant within. On the other side of the Atlantic the British Prime Minister's wife Cheryl has been described as nuttier than a bag of 'macadamias', she also consults her own private astrologer, deals out tarot card in number 10 and once had her husband near naked on a Mexican beach covered in mud and straw, screaming his lungs out as he tried to 'experience rebirth'.

With people like this, their fingers poised on the nuclear button we might yet be facing the 'end of history' however not in the way Francis Fukuyama intended. And that is not to mention the encouragement given the George W Bush by Jerry Falwell to 'Blow them away in the name of the Lord'

When I purchased American Dream Global Nightmare the bookseller read the title smiled and said 'that's for sure', 'best title I seen in ages'.

I have always loved the movies, as a small boy I eagerly awaited Saturday afternoon's to be transported into space with 'Flash Gordon' serials. But one grows up and we must put aside our childish ways.

America's appears to have embarked on a cultural 'history' of their own making, carefully shaped and nurtured to provide recurrent themes and responses that reflect views sympathetic to the interests of the corporations, expressed and represented in the cultural products of American society, embedded in the self-image and definition of America as a nation, a condition that makes even rudimentary change almost impossible.

The world's problems with America begin in America.

They diagnose the root of the problem as the American psychosis. Claiming not use this term with technical, psychoanalytical exactness. They do intend it to convey the considered meaning of a serious cultural condition, an imbalance and disorder afflicting the whole of American society

What America does to itself, what America is incapable of achieving within its own society and culture, has consequences for people everywhere. But before there can be reasoned debate and viable change, the problem has to be made visible. We have an urgent need to make the cultural psychosis of the American Dream visible as a Global Nightmare.

The American Dream begins with a perception that is central to American life. It is the proposition that America is different. What follows from this widely accepted, almost unconscious assumption is that America cannot be judged by the standards applicable to the rest of the world. America is exceptional. It is a cultural predisposition shaped by American history and the specific cultural narratives abstracted from that history. It is a national ethos expressed in myth. It is a view of the American national character supported by the values and moral consciousness embodied in myth, which has a profound impact on the political rhetoric of the nation. As such, it sets the limits of appropriate political debate within America. It is undoubtedly the most dangerous cultural delusion; an imminent threat to the security, peace and well-being not only of Americans but of people everywhere.

The Global Nightmare is that America has the power to impose the limitations of its Dream on the reality of everyone's life. The pursuit of the American Dream has increasingly become a substitution of fantasy for a concern for complex reality, the development of a callousness that describes itself as humanitarian concern and dedication to the noblest of human ideals. Its real consequences are death, suffering, an increasing divide between rich and poor, a squandering of the human future, and building more and more pretexts for conflict as the promise of tomorrow.

As a pervasive cultural construct, operating at home and abroad, the American Dream is embedded in American mythology. They present ten laws of American mythology that tend the roots of the American psychosis: cultural forces that work to make America incapable of wrestling with its own problems, of properly appraising the impact it has on the world or apprehending the scale and nature of the real problems facing America and the world.

These are not immutable laws; but they do serve as a powerful tool for analysis. Each law marshals a complex of cultural effects that make America incapable of understanding its own power, that make it irresponsible with and unaccountable for - the consequences of the uses of its power. These laws work to reassure Americans that they are a benign people, a force for good, when in fact American policy, its acts of commission and omission, is generating, fuelling and sustaining exactly the opposite effects.

It is instructive to delve into the Hollywood dream world where speech is carefully manicured, skin colour, dress, hair and facial expression, even the outside landscape are chosen for their shape and texture reference to deeper message, and ranged and accompanied by a tailored music score, its key selected as to the villain or hero is viewed. Nothing is left to chance. The camera work conveys a message absorbed by an unwitting audience, villains viewed closer than hero's. We feel entitled to invade their private space, extreme close ups are on occasions accompanied with shadow or shade shots for villain.

On the obligatory visit to Disneyland the traveler no doubt expect friendly, benign, possibly compassionate images, but movie characters are never simply a representation of individual people they are encoding of ideology. Brain washing begins early in Hollywood, the seemingly harmless Walt Disney cartoons, these happy vehicles of early learning where children view the working class only in to role of villain, are no less ideological tools of the dominant interests than those that come later.

Woman have long been the target of designated roles by Hollywood, dialogue that depicts the female as not understanding the 'male' technology is made into a joke. Hers is a female world with it own 'domesticated' language. The enlightened observer will notice how jewelry is draped on women as 'coins of patriarchal dominance'. She becomes a possessed and packaged commodity, property to be displayed as expressions of male economic and social status, recall the struggle the heroine had to claim her place in Born Yesterday. But if you thought these were merely the peripherals, then how about lipstick, next time you see a white woman portrayed as villain notice how narrowly her lipstick disguises any suggestion that her lips are fuller then the heroine.

The dream factory is not all of America, but it realistically manipulates what America thinks it was, is, and could be, to make a culture and economy increasingly driven by the desire to be more like the projections presented on film. This is why it is such a proper and convenient way to order an analysis of American culture. And it is a dimension of American culture familiar to people everywhere.

America, we have to conclude, is not different, not exceptional. America is imperfect, flawed, and prone to error that has foul consequences, whether intended or not.

Believing that America is the panicle of goodness and light it is hardly surprising to find the joyous end of history shrouded in Empire, driven by the movies, where to be a celebrity is the common currency, and its absorption by the nation that American democracy has the right to be imperial and express itself through empire.

Yet in reality the American economy is a giant war machine, spread across the nation, in every state and corporation, with hot and cold running wars a necessity for the economic livelihood of the nation. Without external threats, real or imagined, Wall Street goes into melt down mode, for America war, hot or cold, has become a necessity.

Peace is bad for business. Like the junkie hooked on the latest designer drug of choice the American economy has become totally dependent on regular fixes of government handouts on military spending.

The myths, the American view of history and American tradition are believed to be self evident, universal narratives applicable across all time and space

In the moulding of the American psyche, the brain-dulling role of Hollywood is paramount. From it beginnings the movies have been a part of popular entertainment and propaganda, for war and business. Much of the movies stories reflect the cultural backgrounds of the early moviemakers many of whom later became the owners of giant movie studios

So as the sunsets on the American Dream the traveller bids farewell to this land of flag flyers, hopefully a little wiser, armed with the knowledge that much work remains if we are to bridge the gulf of ignorance and understanding. These books are useful first steps.