>From: [log in to unmask] (Viggo Andersen)
>Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 09:56:50 +0200
>Sender: [log in to unmask]
>
>There is more at the site: http://www.efn.org/~valdas/contents.html
>
>Valdas Anelauskas is a Lithuanian and former Soviet dissident now
>living in US. His life story: http://www.efn.org/~valdas/author.html
>
>Viggo.
>
>http://www.efn.org/~valdas/america12.html
>
> "The most potent weapon in the
> hands of the oppressor is the
> mind of oppressed."
> - Steve Biko
>
> And how do the rulers of this system justify such
> terrible atrocities as pushing millions of innocent
> children deep into jaws of poverty? Well, simply by painting
> the poor themselves as the sole cause of their poverty... As I
> see it, all this welfare reform is really about shifting the
> blame, from the rule of a wealthy elite whose policies have
> made a moneyed mockery of democracy in America, to the most
> vulnerable, powerless, and impoverished sectors of American
> society.
>
> This brutal attack upon poor recipients of welfare assistance
> is just a continuation of the characteristic reactionary
> tendency in American society to blame the poor for being poor,
> to blame the victims of capitalism for the conditions the
> system has imposed upon them. Victims of this inhumane system
> are portrayed here as "freeloaders wheedling handouts from the
> hardworking taxpayers."
>
> The ruling class in America has jettisoned the idea that they
> have any responsibility for an unemployed people they no longer
> need as workers. All they have to do now is get the whole
> American society to see it that way. Those who are unemployed
> or homeless, who need social assistance, are demonized here by
> the power elite and their media puppets in order to convince
> American ignorant masses that poor people deserve no help at
> all.
>
> One of the major instruments of class warfare in modern
> American society is a very sophisticated corporate propaganda,
> which justifies all unconscionable and barbaric attacks on poor
> by dehumanizing them. "It is one of the most awesome and
> effective propaganda systems that has ever existed in world
> history," says prominent American dissident Noam Chomsky.
>
> The most potent method the U.S. governing class uses is to
> create a pseudo-thought system which hides the real causes of
> poor people's slavery and powerlessness by placing the blame on
> the slaves themselves for being such failures in this "great
> capitalist society," with its "opportunity for all."
>
> The rulers of this system chastise the poor for the problems
> faced by all working people. As historian and political
> scientist Francis Fox Piven said, "A lot of people [in America]
> are living on the edge now, working harder than ever just to
> stay even. That anger is easy to direct against poor people."
>
> Many Americans still tend to believe that poverty is the plight
> of those who are unable or simply unwilling to compete -- that
> poverty is a sign of personal failure, rather than the
> consequence of an unjust economic system. As a society they are
> trained to believe that the poor deserve to be poor, and the
> rich deserve to be rich.
>
> "Americans have always been pretty hostile to poor people,"
> says Francis Fox Piven, "And with this [welfare] reform, there
> is a kind of heritage being invoked of hard work and standing
> on your own. Those slogans are now used to grab the money and
> single out the poor as the scapegoats in American society
> today."
>
> The notion that only individuals themselves are fully
> responsible for their own fate is one that is already deeply
> ingrained in the American mentality. Because Americans learn to
> believe that hard work will always be rewarded they often
> masochistically blame themselves for their failure to succeed
> in this cutthroat system.
>
> The ruling class plays to the deep, defining streak of American
> morbid individualism, the mythology of "if you work hard you
> can make it," and the sense of pride in economic independence.
> Belief in the American myth that "everyone can make it" remains
> like a national creed here -- despite the fact that each day
> millions of hard-working poor Americans are not "making it."
>
> The most powerful tool of the U.S. power elite in its class
> warfare is the corporate ownership of the means of
> communication, which it uses to shape "public opinion." Ninety
> percent of the U.S. media are owned by fewer than 20
> corporations that therefore dominate public discussion and
> debate; these corporations determine what people will talk
> about and the limits of the public discussion.
>
> Major U.S. corporations now control much of the access to minds
> of Americans and the selection of the subjects that they are
> encouraged to think about from day to day. Twenty corporations
> own and control 90 percent of American radio and TV stations,
> newspapers, magazines, book publishers and major movie studios.
> These corporations determine what people will talk about and
> the limits of public discussion.
>
> The American public receives their information from this
> corporate-owned media, whose task is to lie. The purpose of the
> media in America is to cultivate public stupidity and
> conformity in order to protect the rule of the economic elite
> from interference by the masses. Media stereotypes perpetuate
> the myth of affluence and encourage Americans to feel that they
> as individuals, have failed, rather than that this society has
> failed them.
>
> The U.S. propaganda machine, which is called here "the public
> relations industry," was created by powerful corporations in
> order to control the public mind. They recognized that critical
> thought would be the greatest hazard facing them on their way
> toward obscene profits through exploitation.
>
> American society is trapped in a system of private tyranny. The
> tyrants here understand that they have to control people's
> minds in order to rule and keep the status quo. They understand
> that real democracy would be the greatest threat to private
> tyranny, just as it is a threat to state tyranny. Therefore,
> all huge public relations industry with its massive propaganda
> campaigns put a lot of effort to sell Americanism and the
> "harmony" of American capitalism.
>
> The corporations own the media and can promulgate the fairy
> tales of the ruling class 24 hours a day. Its lies, which take
> various devious forms, some outrageous and some subtle, are
> essential for the survival of this brutal system of oppression
> and exploitation. Together with the glorification of the
> capitalist market, the vilification of the poor is used here to
> justify the frenzied accumulation of wealth by the few at the
> expense of the many.
>
> Repeat a lie often enough and loud enough and with enough power
> behind it and it will come to stand for the truth, as Dr.
> Goebbels liked to say. So it is with a sophisticated propaganda
> regarding welfare and the poor in America. Ever since Ronald
> Reagan conjured up images of so-called "welfare queens" getting
> rich by ripping off federal assistance, American society has
> been moving toward a social climate that allows to abdicate
> responsibility for social ills such as poverty and homelessness
> that this system produces.
>
> The propaganda machine has done a great job. The myth of the
> moral depravity of the poor became such a powerful emotional
> rallying cry in America that it has taken over public
> discussion of poverty and obscured rational analysis. The
> touchstone of all propaganda is that it is felt as the truth.
> It is impervious to rational analysis because it does not
> depend on any rational analysis for its galvanizing appeal.
>
> By demonizing the poor, the burden of responsibility for their
> misery is shifted from the handful of obscenely rich Americans
> who own the capital -- and hence possess the power of life and
> death -- to a convenient scapegoat: the victims of the
> greed-driven, dog-eat-dog economic system themselves. If you
> are not rich, if you are not "making it," then you are the only
> one to blame... Such is American ideology.
>
> These propaganda lies, endlessly repeated, not only undermine
> the development of communication and organization, but divorce
> people from their own common-sense experience and the economic
> reality of their lives. All the public debates are then limited
> to pseudo-discussion of mental and moral inferiority of "lower
> classes" or an "underclass," which by definition deserve the
> substandard life they themselves have caused.
>
> According to this mean-spirited ideology, any problems
> individuals may have are their own fault, because they don't
> have the right "values," don't take "personal responsibility,"
> make the wrong choices, etc., etc. The term "underclass" is
> widely used here to stigmatize millions of poor Americans, to
> brand them "unfit," "unmotivated," "unwilling," or "unable" to
> do their part to achieve their piece of the so-called "American
> Dream."
>
> But the enormous effectiveness of this ideological propaganda
> is only possible, however, because it is merely a secularized,
> modernized version of a religious myth of predestination
> created by the 16th century Puritan theologian John Calvin.
> This doctrine states that every human being is created either
> damned or saved by God prior to birth. Thus the task of man or
> woman during his/her life is no longer to do good, to be
> charitable, to love neighbor, but only to discover whether he
> or she is damned or saved
>
> And what is the sign of eternal salvation? Success, defined by
> wealth, is the absolute sign that one is saved by God from the
> start, while, of course, failure, as defined by poverty, is the
> certain sign of damnation. This is the myth of the damned poor,
> which spread through American culture giving its moralistic hue
> and its deepest justification. After all, if the poor are
> damned anyway, it is perfectly righteous to make their lives a
> hell on earth.
>
> This prejudice is the cornerstone of the American ideology, the
> infamous Puritan Ethic. This Puritan Ethic formed the limits of
> rational thinking in American society. It became a core of
> belief in the "American Way of Life," which is a real religion,
> the True Faith in the United States of America.
>
> When a fellow human being falls to the ground, the decent thing
> to do would be to bend your shoulder to the task of helping
> that person back to his or her feet... As the Ancient Roman
> philosopher Seneca put it almost 2,000 years ago, "Our
> relations with one another are like a stone arch, which would
> collapse if the stones did not mutually support one another."
> All of the world's religions affirm compassion and the sharing
> of material resources.
>
> As we can read in the Bible, the early Christians adopted the
> teachings of Jesus strictly: "No one said that any of his
> belongings was his own, but they all shared with one another
> everything they had." There are over 600 verses in the Bible
> devoted to compassion for the poor and contempt for the rich.
> The example of Jesus and the early Christians stands as a
> standard calling the modern societies to avoid an excessive
> concentration of wealth that imposes poverty upon large numbers
> of people.
>
> Well, this is certainly not the American Way of Life. And
> they're even proud of it! Typical of American social psychology
> is the craving for profit, a proprietary mentality, an
> every-man-for-himself attitude, and complete and utter
> selfishness. They have simplistically atomized the wide breadth
> of society, with its diverse range of human needs, abilities
> and creativity, into antagonistic individuals seeking personal
> gain at any price. Individualism and money are exalted over
> community values. Ronald Reagan's British friend Margaret
> Thatcher once chided, " There is no such thing as society."
> President Reagan's budget director David Stockman put it
> plainly: "The people are not entitled to anything."
>
> Blaming-the-loser is linked here with praising-the-winner.
> Based on the assumption that the "successful" are inherently
> "better" people, this dog-eat-dog attitude, supposedly based on
> Darwin's theory of evolution, considers human life a
> struggle-in-the-jungle in which only the strongest survive.
> Survival of the fittest ... Each victory requires another's
> defeat and those who emerge on top deserve it, because they are
> superior people...
>
> This circular reasoning -- they are superior because they win;
> they win because they are superior -- is as obvious as it is
> wrong. But it is deeply imbedded and widespread in American
> society. Even worse, this logic is used to argue that
> government intervention to increase economic opportunity is not
> justified because only the wealthy few are entitled to what
> they have.
>
> In accordance with American ideology and its refined propaganda
> the wealthy are hard-working people blessed by God and
> therefore deserve their good fortune. On the other hand, the
> poor are lazy, shiftless, dependent upon handouts, and take
> from but contribute nothing to society. Money given to the
> wealthy creates jobs. Money provided to the poor makes them
> lazy, and saps their moral fiber.
>
> The poor here in this cutthroat society are simply excluded as
> almost nonhumans who have earned their miserable fate, and
> therefore deserve it. Consequently, they should receive no aid
> and definitely no compassion. If they currently receive
> taxpayer money from the "welfare state," it should be cut off
> forthwith ... This is what American mean-spirited ideology
> dictates.
>
> It says that any form of entitlements make people lazy and
> dependent. Support programs of any kind become a form of
> tyranny as they "interfere with individual liberty" for only by
> liberating individuals from meddlesome state interference will
> they be free to recapture and exercise their rights as
> Americans. And of course there is enough real tyranny,
> interference and oppression in the U.S. government for people
> to respond to this line of reasoning.
>
> A couple of years ago, a poll by the Roper Center for Public
> Opinion Research asked whether "government should provide
> everyone with a guaranteed basic income." Only 21 percent of
> Americans agreed -- about a third of the number of Germans (58
> percent) or Britons (66 percent), or Italians (69 percent).
> Asked whether it's "government's responsibility to reduce
> income differences," only 39 percent of Americans agreed. That
> compares with 66 percent of Germans and 80 percent of Italians.
>
> This concept of non-intrusive government held by Americans,
> molded by the U.S. public relations industry, allows government
> to go on about its business protecting the enormous property of
> the wealthy few and maintaining the status quo. Released from
> protective legislations, regulations and restrictions on its
> use of the labor, the U.S. capitalists are freed of any
> barriers toward maximizing their profit. Police, prisons and a
> growing apparatus of government repression guarantee the
> protection of their interests. Thus the U.S. ruling class
> openly attacks the notion of equality and democracy, while at
> the same time hypocritically claiming to preserve it.
>
|
