Opinion: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the greatest country of them all?
Walt Disney once said, “If you could see close in my eyes, the American flag is waving in both of them and up my spine is growing this red, white and blue stripe.” Perhaps Disney’s patriotic astigmatism stems from the fact that America, much like Mickey Mouse and Daisy Duck, is cartoony.It’s a land where newscasters say things like ‘Governor Schwarzenegger’ with a straight face; where people burn mounds of Dixie Chicks CDs because the Chicks opposed the invasion of Iraq; where cafeterias rename French fries ‘freedom fries’ because France opposed the invasion of Iraq. In case that list makes it appear as if the U.S. slid downhill, not much has actually changed since the old days when newspapermen wrote things like ‘Congressman Davy Crocket’ with composure; when Woody Guthrie was banned from the radio; and when eateries renamed sauerkraut ‘liberty cabbage’ to protest the Germans during World War I.As a result of a policy decision that would’ve made mice like Mickey and Minnie drool, the federal government stockpiled cheese in the caves of Missouri for many years to prop-up the dairy industry. By the time the government axed that policy, more than $4 billion worth of cow curd had heaped-up.Last October a driver was pulled over by a cop and ticketed for driving in the carpool lane without any passengers. The driver fought the ticket in court because, he argued, beside him in the passenger seat were the articles of incorporation for his business, and since corporations are considered legal person under U.S. law, his use of the carpool lane was legally sanctioned. A child’s playful mind could imagine those articles of incorporation suddenly springing to life and shouting to their Geppetto, ‘Someday I’ll be a real person!’ And when that day comes, we’ll hear Jiminy Cricket’s lament: “Well, guess he won’t need me anymore. What does a corporation want with a conscience, anyway?”Just a short magic carpet ride away from Disney World lies Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which houses a U.S. Naval Base where American flags wave in the eyes of Arab prisoners who are tortured to extract useless information. Other than being tortured, inmates at Gitmo attend ‘Enriching Your Life’ courses where they paint pictures and practice resume-writing while shackled to the floor – perhaps before being strapped to a chair in a room with Sesame Street songs blasting at deafening decibels. Lately the detainees at Gitmo have indulged in DVDs of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air while other inmates have feeding tubes shoved up their nostrils and forced down their throats to counteract their hunger strike. Apparently, there’s no good reason to obey the Geneva accords and treat prisoners humanely because, after all, they “come from a land, from a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam, where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face. It’s barbaric, but hey it’s home.”Repulsive as torture is, it’s more affable than the recommendation of the late Reverend Jerry Falwell who said that America should “blow them all away in the name of the Lord.” Though Falwell’s sentiments stray a bit from the gracious sympathy of Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild, his outlook is typical of those who perceive diversity as impurity. Rev. Falwell also claimed that the September 11th attacks were caused by gays, “abortionists,” feminists, the ACLU and pagans. In case you were under the impression that gays and feminists were just struggling for equal rights, people of the Falwell ilk can enlighten your ignorance. For example, Pat Robertson of the 700 Club said that the “feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”Abusive vitriol of that sort makes you want to wish upon a star and be transported to the charming world of Disney fairy tales. Unfortunately, Walt Disney was himself a sexist, racist, anti-Semitic bigot who wanted to create a magical kingdom where women served men and non-whites were kept outside the castle walls. Uncle Walt’s supremacist views were no secret at the Disney studio: Women were confined to subordinate positions while “negroes” and Jews were barred from employment.And his target audience is, of course, children; so Disney might’ve agreed with the author W. Cleon Skousen when he wrote that, “For many years both parents and teachers have sensed that strong heavily financed left-wing influences have been doing their best to foster a climate of hedonistic nihilism among the schools. If these people had their way we would develop a prospective nightmare in our schools – schools without grades, without discipline, without prayers, without pledges of allegiance, without Christmas, without Easter, without patriotism, without morals, without standards of speech or standards of dress. Already, wherever they have taken over the educational system, we see the worst of their products – intellectual guerillas emerging from the universities trained in ‘participatory mobocracy.’”‘Participatory mobocracy’ is a byword for democracy. In a democracy the people rule straight-up, so there’s no privileged class, race, sex, gender, religion, or professional group of officials, representatives, or bureaucrats to screen-out the direct rule by everyday people. But that mode of living among one another is despised by control freaks such as Walt Disney and supremacists like Falwell, Robertson, and Skousen, as well as business tycoons and party apparatchiks.Alas, the vibrant democracy that once reigned in America has bitten the hag’s poison apple and succumbed to the Sleeping Death.During World War I a movie called The Spirit of ’76 was released, which, as the title suggests, was set during the American Revolution and thus portrayed British violence against the American colonists. But since Britain was a U.S. ally during World War I, the movie’s producer was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and sentenced to ten years in prison. The case was registered under the telling title, U.S. v. Spirit of ’76. That title perfectly illustrates the growth of state power which suffocated the rebellious energy that won colonists their independence from an imperial power.In his notes on Independence Day, 1831 in New York, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “Ceremony of 4th July… Perfect order that prevails… No police, Authority nowhere. Festival of the people… Emotion real.” Nowadays 4th of July celebrations feature undercover cops who scour the crowd for underage beer drinkers as a fleet of F/A-18 Hornet jets fly in formation overhead, overtly showcasing the people’s vicarious military power while subtly revealing their political powerlessness.Which America was it that caused flags to wave in Disney’s eyes? Was it the America that needlessly murdered hundreds of thousands of Filipinos? The America that stole Hawaii from its people? The American that herded over 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent into concentration camps? The America that secretly sterilized Native American women to perpetuate an ongoing policy of genocide?It’s easy for a red, white, and blue stripe to crawl up your spine when your mind is lost in a candy-coated Never Never Land of American mythos. But for the people whose voice has been stolen, like Ariel’s mellifluous song trapped in a nautilus shell, they are rendered silent while U.S. power sweeps across the globe like a reaper’s scythe, and American society swan dives into ecological oblivion. A spoonful of sugar doesn’t make that reality easier to swallow, and so victims of that reality sigh at the sight of the king’s distant tower as they sit it a chirping meadow, plucking petals off a dandelion, humming ‘A dream is a wish your heart makes,’ awaiting democracy’s reanimation.But America can’t be that bad. After all, people still flock to the United States. As the British actor Alan Rickman said, “I do feel more myself in America. I can regress there, and they have roller coaster parks.”