"""For millions of oppressed people all over the world, its famous symbol -
Liberty lighting the world - still represents a powerful message of hope and
the promise of a better life."""
>>> This is the key to the whole thing. It's fairly obvious that the U.S.
'invented' globalism BECAUSE of the above statement. Whereas other nations
have made their attempts at retaining their peculiar identities, the U.S. acts
as a big sponge, absorbing other cultures and putting its own twist -- an
American identity -- on what survives. The U.S. invented golobalism because
almost all of its citizens came from somewhere else ... and fairly recently in
the context of the historical calendar. Four or five hundred years is not a
long time given the length of time the French, the Germans, the Italians, and,
well, okay, even the Britlanders (just to name a few, not neglecting the
Asians, Africans, Islanders, or anyone else) have been trotting around their
portions of the Earth. WE ARE GLOBAL by definition. Almost everyone here is
related to someone "over there". What we export is a synthesis of everything
we've ever imported. Just let your fingers do the walking through the 'phone
book and in one alphabetical listing, you'll find how many 'Old World' names?
Or, walk down the street and how many similarly derived names will you find?
The 'problem' is the 'Old World' may be balkin' at importing our export of
multicultural cooperation (does 'balkin' ' come from 'Balkans', thinking of a
great example?). The U.S. seems to do well with the great melting pot,
something the Euros (to cite one) resist through their ethnic and lingual
purity standards; just remember the efforts the 'right' wingers of Europe are
up to with their immigration policies ("Sure you Balkaniacs (e.g.) can come to
visit but when your visa's up, back to your hovels [please excuse the mass
bombing of the past year] !!!").
The solution to counter U.S. hegemony is to keep their people at home; that way
the emigres will be less likely to want to give something back to the Father-,
Mother-, Sister-, Brother-, Uncle-, Aunt-lands.
Yet, I wax nostalgic for the times when there were cut and dried French or
German or whatever societies. Of course, then they made wars and we came and
then they came and then everything got not mixed up nor confused, just blurred.
A<>E<>R <<<
>From http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/2000/05/02pleasure
}}>Begin>}}
UNITED STATES GOES GLOBAL
The control of pleasure
How could it fail to fascinate us? The United States has powerful resources
with which to excite our envy and enchant our hearts and minds. In political
terms, it has the amiable countenance of an old and accommodating democracy,
heir to a revolution of universal significance and a rich culture. For millions
of oppressed people all over the world, its famous symbol - Liberty lighting
the world - still represents a powerful message of hope and the promise of a
better life.
After emerging victorious from the cold war, the US went on to win the war in
the Gulf and then in Kosovo, upholding humanitarian principles and countering
authoritarian regimes or evil dictatorships on each occasion. Having reached
this peak of military glory as the only remaining "hyperpower", it coolly
dominates the world like no other country in history.
What is more, the length of the current US cycle of growth seems to confirm
that God really is on America's side. Did it not invent the internet and launch
the new economy? Is it not the driving force behind globalisation?
All over the world, people are following its example, adopting the latest
management methods, legal systems, sales techniques, spin doctors and, of
course, its fashions, stars and myths. US firms in every field - from Microsoft
to Yahoo, Walt Disney or Monsanto - flaunt their intriguing success and
continue their world conquest, backed by clever advertising campaigns.
But whatever its admirers may think, it is hardly surprising that here and
there, and above all in America itself (as we saw in Seattle last December and
in Washington this April), people should be wondering about the meaning of this
offensive. About the new face of the US empire. The power of its ideology. And
its strategies of persuasion.
by IGNACIO RAMONET
It is easier to dominate someone if they are unaware of being dominated.
Colonised and colonisers both know that domination is not just based on
physical supremacy. Control of hearts and minds follows military conquest.
Which is why any empire that wants to last must capture the souls of its
subjects.
In the past the United States has been involved in genocide (of American
Indians), enslavement (of African Americans), territorial expansion (into
Mexico) and colonial conquest (of Puerto Rico). But now, tired of its past
brutality, it seeks to occupy the minds of non-Americans peacefully and win
their hearts.
Oddly enough, it is in Europe that this imperial design meets the least
resistance, for reasons that are, above all, political. The first democratic
revolution brought the US into existence, in 1776, 13 years before the French
revolution. There are also historical reasons. No European state - except
Britain in the 18th century and Spain at the end of the 19th century - has
waged war against the US in a two-sided dispute. On the contrary, the US has
long been a land of freedom, generously welcoming millions of European refugees
and political exiles. What is more it stood by Europe in two world wars (1914-
18 and 1939-45) and has, on various occasions, played a decisive role in
interventions against war-mongering or fascist powers.
In 1989-91 the US won the cold war against the Soviet Union, bringing down the
Berlin wall and heralding the emergence of democratic regimes in central and
eastern Europe.
In geopolitical terms the US occupies a position of power that no other country
has ever enjoyed. Its military force is overwhelming, on account of its nuclear
weaponry and control of space, but also its naval power. It is the only country
to operate fleets on all the world's oceans and its main seas, and to have
military bases, depots and listening posts on all five continents.
The Pentagon spends about $31bn on military research alone, a sum equivalent to
the entire budget of the French army. Its armament is several generations ahead
of the competition. Its armed forces (1.4 million soldiers) can identify,
monitor and listen to objects, in the air, below ground or underwater. The US
military can see almost everything, without being seen or threatened, and
destroy targets, by day or night, with extreme precision (1).
Washington also has an impressive range of intelligence agencies - the Central
Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office
and Defence Intelligence Agency - that employ over 100,000 people, with a
budget of more than $26m. US spies are at work everywhere, all the time, in
friendly and hostile countries. Not only do they steal diplomatic and military
secrets but also industrial, technological and scientific data.
In foreign affairs, the US "hyperpower" directs international policy. It keeps
an eye on crises all over the world, for it has interests everywhere and is the
only country to act globally, from the Middle East to Kosovo, in Timor and
Taiwan, Pakistan and the Caucasus, Congo and Angola, Cuba and Colombia.
Washington also exerts a decisive influence in the multilateral bodies whose
decisions set the course of world affairs: the United Nations, Group of Seven
(major industrialised countries), International Monetary Fund, World Trade
Organisation, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation and so on.
In the modern world the strength of an empire no longer depends exclusively on
its military and diplomatic clout; and the US has also secured a dominant
position in science. Every year it drains tens of thousands of brains
(students, researchers and graduates) from the rest of the world into its
universities, laboratories and companies. In the last 10 years this has enabled
it to win 19 Nobel prizes for physics (out of 26), 17 in medicine (out of 24)
and 13 in chemistry (out of 22).
US control of economic networks is not open to question. Its gross domestic
product in 1999 ($8,683.4bn) was over six times the French equivalent. The
dollar is still the top currency. It is involved in 83% of all exchange
transactions (2). The New York stock exchange is the universal financial
barometer, and its hiccups send ripples round the world, as we saw with the
Nasdaq index in April. US pension funds - the behemoths of the financial
markets - intimidate executives in every sphere of global business.
The US is also the leading cyberpower. It controls technological innovation and
the computer industry. This is the land of the Web, the information highway and
the new economy, home of computer giants, such as Microsoft, Intel and IBM, and
Internet champions, such as Yahoo, Amazon and America Online.
Why then does such crushing military, diplomatic, economic and technologic
supremacy not prompt more criticism or resistance? No doubt because US hegemony
also embraces culture and ideology. It has long been the home of many fine,
universally respected intellectuals and creative artists in every field, who
are quite rightly admired by one and all. Its mastery extends to the symbolic
level, lending it what Max Weber calls "charismatic domination".
The US has taken control of the vocabulary, concepts and meaning of many
fields. It obliges us to formulate problems of its own invention with the words
it offers. It provides the codes to decipher enigmas it created in the first
place. In fact, it has set up any number of research centres and think-tanks
for this very purpose, employing thousands of analysts and experts. These
eminent bodies produce reports on legal, social and economic issues with a
perspective that supports the ideal of the free market, the world of business
and the global economy. Their lavishly funded work attracts endless media
attention and is broadcast the world over (3).
The main factories of this industry of persuasion - the Manhattan Institute,
Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and
Cato Institute - spare no expense in inviting large numbers of journalists,
academics, civil servants and company directors to their seminars and
conferences, so that they may return home and spread the word.
Wielding the might of information and technology, the US thus establishes, with
the passive complicity of the people it dominates, what may be seen as affable
oppression or delightful despotism. And this is all the more effective as its
control of the culture industries lets it capture our imagination.
The US uses its admirable know-how to people our dreams with crowds of media
heroes, Trojan horses despatched by their master to invade our brains. Only 1%
of the films shown in the US are foreign productions, while Hollywood floods
the world with its wares. And close behind come television series, cartoons,
videos and comics, not to mention fashion, urban development and food (see
article by Rick Fantasia in this issue).
The faithful gather to worship the new icons in malls - temples raised to the
glory of all forms of consumption. All over the world these centres of shopping
fever promote the same way of life, in a whirl of logos, stars, songs, idols,
brands, gadgets, posters and celebrations (like the extraordinary spread of
Halloween in France).
All this is accompanied by the seductive rhetoric of freedom of choice and
consumer liberty, hammered home by obsessive, omnipresent advertising (annual
advertising expenditure in the US exceeds $200bn) that has as much to do with
symbols as with the goods themselves. Marketing has become so sophisticated
that it aims to sell not just a brandname or social sign, but an identity. All
based on the principle that having is being.
It is high time that we recall Aldous Huxley's warning that, "As the art and
science of manipulation come to be better understood, the dictators of the
future will doubtless learn to combine these techniques with the non-stop
distractions which, in the West, are now threatening to drown in a sea of
irrelevance the rational propaganda essential to the maintenance of individual
liberty and the survival of democratic institutions" (4).
The American empire has become a master of symbols and seduction. Offering
unlimited leisure and endless distraction, its hypnotic charm enters our minds
and instils ideas that were not ours. America no longer seeks our submission by
force, but by incantation. It has no need to issue orders, for we have given
our consent. No need for threats, as it bets on our thirst for pleasure.
(1) Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 3 June 1999.
(2) See Peter Gowan, "Le régime dollar-Wall Street d'hégémonie mondiale", in
Actuel Marx, n° 27, a special issue devoted to US hegemony, January-June 2000,
PUF, Paris.
(3) See Herbert I. Schiller, "Dumbing down, American-style", Le Monde
diplomatique, English edition, August 1998.
(4) Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, Harper, New York, 1958.
Translated by Harry Forster
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 1997-2000 Le Monde diplomatique
{{<End<{{
A<>E<>R
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960)
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
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