Two Planets Earth – Moon of Alabama

September 10, 2004

Two Planets Earth

There seems to be a more and more different apperception of today´s world in the United States and the Rest of the World.

Compare the new Washington Post/ABC News poll numbers, with Bush leading Kerry by 52% to 43%, and the Pipa international poll where Kerry has a 46% to 20% lead.

One may diagnose that American exceptionalism is evolving into autism. Some behaviour looks increasingly to fit the symptoms and as the individual numbers are increasing rapidly, the nation may be just following the trend.

But then, maybe there are just two planets Earth circling the sun.

Posted by b on September 10, 2004 at 11:10 UTC | Permalink

Comments

We know plenty about the hostility and resistance of Continental Europe to the Iraq adventure. It’s a story that can be found in our local papers. But who, in the electorate, knows about AIPAC, the neo-cons, Israel, and Iraq? Few indeed, and in little detail. It’s not a subject for discussion among the contestants, and the media avoid the story just as much as they avoided the story of AIDS in the early 1980’s. If we’re looking for schizophrenia, this is where we’d find it.

Posted by: alabama | Sep 10 2004 13:47 utc | 1

Monford fun to read, even if the topic is polls.
Who The Hell Is “Undecided”? And why do so many election polls leave you angry and stupefied and drunk?

Posted by: Fran | Sep 10 2004 15:02 utc | 2

Rift widens between U.S. and Europe

76 percent of Europeans disapproved of current U.S. foreign policy.
That disapproval rating is up 12 percentage points over last year and has risen 20 percentage points over the past two years.
…
When asked whether military strength was the best way to ensure peace, 54 percent of Americans agreed, while 28 percent of Europeans agreed.
When asked whether a war can be just, 82 percent of Americans said yes, while 41 percent of Europeans answered positively.

This is a serious split and development. The younger people growing up now will not remember any positive influence the US had in Europe. The US is effectivly creating the United Europe it fears.

Posted by: b | Sep 10 2004 16:16 utc | 3

alabama, I find your suspicion that much of it is about schizophrenia persuasive. What do you think it would take to get them out of their coma? Economic collapse? Gas prices going into the stratosphere? The second coming? It’s hard to judge jaded consumers.

Posted by: teuton | Sep 10 2004 16:37 utc | 4

teuton: I find your suspicion that much of it is about schizophrenia persuasive. What do you think it would take to get them out of their coma?
If we are talking actual schizophrenia, a mass of medically disordered minds on a societal level, then the treatment is a daily regimen of thorazine or some other more recent generation anti-psychotic drug. Simple waking unconsciousness is another matter altogether, eh?
😉

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 10 2004 16:49 utc | 5

RE: b’s two cultures rift
We are truly becoming a repugnacious country.
Not only are we increasingly willing to do violence to others, but to ourselves as well.
America leads the world in the percent incarceration of its citizens.
We are good at building and filling prisons.
Better at making and distributing weapons.
And truly excellent at producing and broadcasting violent tv shows and movies.
There are few mechanisms in place to check the growth of these trends that encourage us to violence.
Whether it is watching Monster trucks crush smaller vehicles, or pro wrestlers toss each other out of the ring… violence is what we do best, and therefore, what we do most often.
Archimedes saying: “Give me a big enough lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth” has been rewritten in America: “Give me a big enough gun and a place to stand and I will move the earth.”
I’ve said it before…
The promise and progress of Western Civilization is in Europe’s hands.
The sooner Europe unites, gains confidence, and considers itself a leader and not a follower, the better the world (and America) will be served.

Posted by: koreyel | Sep 10 2004 16:51 utc | 6

If we can’t have a meaningful discussion about the war of Iraq–and it is only meaningful in the context of our relationship to Israel–then we can’t have a meaningful discussion about anything at all.. This isn’t just a matter of dollars spent and lives lost; it’s a matter on long-term orientation and inertia; we’ve rolled on into this mess for the past fifty-five years; and getting out will take at least as long, and a level of honesty that I believe impossible for our newspapers, mass media, think-tanks and universities, let alone our officials in high office.

Posted by: alabama | Sep 10 2004 17:12 utc | 7

From todays IHT. Some people who try to live on both planets.
European survivors of 9/11: Torn 2 ways

Posted by: Fran | Sep 10 2004 18:21 utc | 8

If this WP Poll is true, Bush leading 53-37, I really feel like I am living on an different planet. I just can not find any reasoning to understand how so many people still can be pro Bush.
Polls Suggest War Isn’t Hurting Bush – Mounting Deaths in Iraq Have Not Resulted in Major Backlash in Public Opinion

Posted by: Fran | Sep 10 2004 18:46 utc | 9

Koreyel: Yep, Europe may be a good thing for Western civilization, though don’t have an entirely romantic vision; reactionary idiots and proto-fascist thugs aren’t limited to the US, heck, they first appeared in Europe, and the continent hasn’t ever been really cleansed.
That said, when Bernhard says “The US is effectivly creating the United Europe it fears”, I have to say: So what, as if it is a bad thing? Moreso, the polls show that most Americans and most Europeans want a stronger Europe, though for different reasons – the US people hope to see a stronger ally that could be helpful in the current chaotic world, and the EU people want a stronger Europe so that ties will the US will can be weakened (to put it more bluntly, Europe until 1989 was basically under the twin domination of USSR and USA, and half the job was done when Berlin’s wall fell, with people now waiting for the other shoe to drop).

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Sep 10 2004 18:52 utc | 10

Fran:
I just can not find any reasoning to understand how so many people still can be pro Bush.
I can’t find a single postive reason either.
But I can find one single overarching negative reason:
Bush uses the USA to do violence to others before they can do violence to the USA.
(Never mind that Iraq never had anything to do with 9/11, and never mind that Iraq never planned on attacking the US. Iraqis where brown-skinned dirty Moslems who hated America too. That’s all the proof anybody needed…)
What am I saying here is my above post recast.
Fran:
Never underestimate the willingness of your fellow Americans to consider violence as the first solution.
That is what we have become as a culture and that is what your president is.
There is his WHOLE appeal. He is a tough talking bully who will shoot first and maybe ask questions later. That he can’t talk well, or read much, or do mathematics is not a problem. Because neither can most of our citizens. In fact, anti-intellectualism is for him a secondary bond with the American public.
The primary bond?
Esprit de violence.
The upper class certainly is not above seeing violence done to Iraqis.
The middle class is not oppossed to being oppressors.
The lower class… well, they feel like winners when the USA kicks butt. (Very much akin to the vicarious pleasure one gets when one’s football team kicks ass. You get your self esteem boosts where and when you can.)
—————–
Cluefull Joe…
I understand your caveat in regards to a too romantic vision.
Strange though…I am reading Lance Armstrong’s first book, and right after writing my above post, came across this quote:
“But inevitably, living in Europe began to polish me. I rented an apartment in Lake Como, Italy, and was charmed by that misty, dusty town tucked in the Italian Alps. Och was a wine lover, and I benefited from his taste, learning to recognize fine food and fine wine. I discovered I had a knack for languages. I was beginning to speak bits of Spanish, Italian, and French, and I could even limp around in Dutch if I had to. I window shopped through Milan, where I learned what a really handsome suit looked like. One afternoon I walked into Duomo, and in that instant all of my ideas about art changed forever…”
It goes on and on…too much to type, but in accord with all I wrote.

Posted by: koreyel | Sep 10 2004 19:38 utc | 11

Koreyel
I’m buying that book.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Sep 10 2004 20:21 utc | 12

alabama, you sound a bit like Habermas here – hope that’s not an offence to you. If only the communicational situation was corrected… But really, another fifty-five years of that crap before there is even the chance for a change? As somebody said: We’ll all be dead.
koreyel: Don’t forget that Monsieur Armstrong is quite privileged. I have heard enthusiastic reports (ahem, I’ve even given one myself) about the incredible US and the fantastic opportunities it offers. If Armstrong had to live in some quarters of Naples (or the Ruhr Valley, for that matter), if he saw some of the darker sides of Europe, he might come to different conclusions. Don’t get me wrong: I owe it at least in part to Mr. Bush that I have recently learned to really support the idea of a united Europe. I am glad that I live ‘here’ and not in the US. But Europe is still a risky game, politically fractured and militarily an ambitious dwarf. It might turn into something rich and strange over the next years, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed.

Posted by: teuton | Sep 10 2004 20:33 utc | 13

Teuton?
Steroids (all top athletes do them).
Cocaine (all top politicians do them?).

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Sep 10 2004 20:55 utc | 14

Yes, Cloned Poster, we’ll all be dead. But before we check out, I’d like just one figure in American public life to tell the truth about AIPAC and the other high-pressure lobbying operations that have intimidated us into a mutism so paralyzing that no one, absolutely no one, dares to denounce the neo-cons for their policies and their politics. We have been, have we not, intimidated on this score? Were it otherwise, a fierce argument would be raging all over the place. But no such argument has arisen, and none will. And in the absence of any such, the rest of our discourse will remain tainted by all the falsehood that timidity begets. And things will get worse: if you doubt my words on this subject, just consult with Juan Cole.

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 10 2004 21:45 utc | 15

alabama,
It’s not a subject for discussion among the contestants, and the media avoid the story just as much as they avoided the story of AIDS in the early 1980’s.
The media is an official covert department of the administration. They control what the American masses get to Pavlovianly believe. A very precise science when applied as ubiquitously as TV is able. (alabama, I know you know this, I’m just stressing it.)
Koreyel
The promise and progress of Western Civilization is in Europe’s hands.
The sooner Europe unites, gains confidence, and considers itself a leader and not a follower, the better the world (and America) will be served.
Interesting concept. America is 240 years old. Europe is 2004? (maybe only approximately 604?) The Koji in South America refer to others as the younger brothers. Maybe this idea applies to we neophyte Europeans in our new American niche.
I think we at the MoA are finding a synthesis of European maturity and American adolescence‘s strengths.
Koreyel
Bush uses the USA to do violence to others before they can do violence to the USA.
Exactly. The justification for Aschroft’s encroachment into all of our less than elitist lives.
And then this needs to be repeated:
…violence as the first solution.
There is his WHOLE appeal. He is a tough talking bully who will shoot first and maybe ask questions later. That he can’t talk well, or read much, or do mathematics is not a problem. Because neither can most of our citizens. In fact, anti-intellectualism is for him a secondary bond with the American public.
He exemplifies the bully we all wish we could have been just to be able to defend ourselves as our tougher peers were bullying us into submission. And then the acquiescent students we were all obliged to become in our compulsory state sponsored schooling. The dominator mentality. The mentality of controlling them because I’m too fearful to be myself.
The feminine/partnership model needs to become our developing meem in this 21 century. Viva la’ MoA

Posted by: Juannie | Sep 10 2004 22:18 utc | 16

@cloned poster and Juannie;
Life’s a vale of tears and smoke and mirrors, ain’t it, just.
You both are preaching to the choir, here.
I think NOT!

Posted by: Aristophanes | Sep 10 2004 23:42 utc | 17

Koreyel, thank you for your comment. I know you are right and with my head I have known that for quiet a while. However, I feel like someone who wakes up one morning and realises that the ‘lump’ sleeping next to him is a bully and a abuser. You remember having been deeply in love with that person and thus having looked away for all the things you didn’t like. You know, all those symptoms of co-dependence. I had a love affair with the US for years (actually for decades, my God), spend a lot of time there traveled from one coast to the other and have many friends their, and, and. And despite knowing what you say is true, part of me just doesn’t want to believe it.
I received the following story a few days ago and would like to share it here:
DOES EVIL EXIST?
This may or may not be a true story but it is a nice bit of logic
A university professor challenged his students with this question. “Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, “Yes, He did!”
“God created everything?” the professor asked. “Yes, sir,” the student replied.
The professor answered, “If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists. And according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil.” The student became quiet before such an answer.
The professor was quite pleased with himself, and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the faith in God is a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said, “Can I ask you a question, professor?” “Of course,” replied the professor. The student stood up and
asked,”Professor, does cold exist?”
“What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?” The students snickered at the young man’s question.
The young man replied, “In fact, sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is, in reality, the absence
of heat. Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of
heat. All matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe
how we feel if we have no heat.”
The student continued. “Professor, does darkness exist?” The professor responded,”Of course it does.”
The student replied, “Once again you are wrong, sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is, in reality, the absence of light. We can study light, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wave lengths of
each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a
certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn’t this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when
there is no light present.”
Finally, the young man asked the professor, “Sir, does evil exist?” Now
uncertain, the professor responded, “Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man’s inhumanity to
man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.”
To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is
just like darkness and cold — a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or
love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light.”
The professor sat down..

Posted by: Fran | Sep 11 2004 6:10 utc | 18

By the way the young student’s name was — Albert Einstein
To pick up my comment from my former post – I guess I am still hoping that it would be possible to bring some light into the darkness that seems to engulf the US at present. Well, there is always hope, isn’t there?

Posted by: Fran | Sep 11 2004 6:13 utc | 19

Is TV part or even source of what is happening. Following is a very interesting article by William Rivers Pitt.
Dumbest. Election. Ever.
“I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.”
– Orson Welles
Bernhard, I found this article is the source for some good questions worth discussing, maybe even in a new thread!

Posted by: Fran | Sep 11 2004 6:51 utc | 20

@b
A sly and important post, with regards to the European view of American exceptionalism — the reversal of liberal vs conservatism in American politics. The fact that individualism, the age old driving force in American politics, has managed to subvert traditional meanings of this conflict is of some interest, in that the European notion of liberalism, with its laissez-faire capitalism, rejection of aristocracy, and also its rejection of a church state, is more than a total reversal. The rejection of the church state has not been “flipped” along with the other.
Rejection of aristocracy (the new “liberal” elite), total embrace of laissez-faire, and the acceptance (not rejection) of the church state is the hallmark of the new conservatism.
I would see the acceptance, or the near total embrace of the church state, in its fundamentalist expression, is the autism you are referring to.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 11 2004 8:08 utc | 21

As I just wrote in an another tread before realising that it was probably abandoned (I apologize if you already read it and now has to read this allover again), I wouldn´t have to high hopes about the goodness of a military united Europe. For all the talk about military power projection a military is actually useful for one thing, and that is fighting wars. And who would Europe fight? The US, Russia or China? No, that would be collective suicide (those nukes you know).
So if a military united Europe disagreed with the US invading and controlling a country like Iraq, what could it do? Well it can´t stop the US without a war, but it can invade some country in the vicinity and thus keeping the power-balance in the region constant. And those I see being most eager to have a military united Europe seems really eager to take on their part of the new white mans burden. Maybe it is different in different parts of Europe, but I wouldn´t bet on it.
So maybe we will have once again a 19th-century situation with four or five (US, Europe, China, Russia, India) major powers dividing the world once more. Thus the cold war would just look as a phase in the eternal powerstruggles over resources and bases.

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Sep 11 2004 12:06 utc | 22

Fran: and since there is no God, then all must be Evil because everything is absence of god?
Can you say I’m sick and tired of all these crappy and bad Christian apologetics. I mean, the first Christian writers in 2nd, 3rd centuries were far superior than all these pseudo-candid crappy stories full of fallacies, sophisms and inconsistencies.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Sep 11 2004 16:38 utc | 23

@swedish
I agree that a military united Europe could be bad. That´s one main reason why I can not vote in favour of the proposed constitution. It would allow for military action to happen without the nations parliaments or the European parliament even voting on it. My hope is that the balance and diversity in Europe will never allow for an imperial war by Europe.
Europe can checkmate the US only through economic and moral means. Any conflict beyond the boundery of Europe should be off limits for European troops. Police and other peacekeepers – yes, artillery and bombers no.
The resource wars are allready in full bloom. The last 30 years added some 3 billion people to this planet. I expect that 30 years from now there will be a smaller number of world inhabitants than today. Europe should try to stay neutral to benevolent in these conflicts as long as possible.

Posted by: b | Sep 11 2004 17:11 utc | 24

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