Let me create a new word for you.
AmeriTrash — An American with a European worldview.
Many people, looking back on 2007, will be struck by how American attitudes have begun moving toward those of Europe. We’re getting practical and growing up. We know there are bad guys, but we don’t over-estimate their power. We understand the immediacy of climate change.
When Europeans, Germans especially, began evidencing these kinds of attitudes, about 20 years ago now, they were derided for their self-absorption, for their tired nihilism. It was shown best in a character of Dieter, by Mike Myers, an obsessive, idiotic German TV video host, all in black, with silly dance moves. (He’s shown here with actor Kyle McLaglan, who was also considered famous at the time. No idea why.)
Americans are becoming AmeriTrash for the same reason Europeans
became Eurotrash. Guilt. We are guilty of terrible crimes in our time,
crimes committed in our name. Most people around the world now consider
Iran, Israel and America the greatest threats to the peace of the
world. Not the terrorists. Not North Korea. America.
We have met the enemy, in other words, and he really is us. To say so is treason, so we simply walk away.
American "commentators" have not picked up on this change, and are
unlikely to for some time. They are wedded, via New York and
Washington, to the existing corporate and political order, to the order
that committed these crimes. If they dared open their eyes and looked
at what has been happening to America, and in America’s name, since
9-11 I doubt they could live with themselves, because they have enabled
it, every step of the way.
There is a difference between going through life with eyes wide shut, and averting your eyes, deliberately looking elsewhere. That’s where AmeriTrash are right now. Americans outside the Republican Party no longer have the guilt problem. We have walked away.
What are some evidences that someone around you has become AmeriTrash?
- Soccer, which we sometimes call futbol.
- Bicycles, sometimes accompanied by Spandex.
- Small cars, like the Scion, the Element and the Volkswagon.
- A preference for saving.
- Modesty and (often) a distancing from politics.
In order to win in 2008 Democrats need to get the AmeriTrash excited
enough to vote. If they can deliver at all, they will hold power for
most of the next generation.
This is not as easy as it sounds. Most Democrats today, professional
Democrats, are either obsessed with Bush or dedicated to the Clinton
AntiThesis, which props up the Nixon-Bush Thesis by assuming it’s
truth. Of the current field the candidate who has come furthest along
the road toward rejecting both the Clinton and Bush obsessions is John
Edwards.
But that may change.
You don’t understand why Kyle MacLachlan was considered famous in the early 90s? Twin Peaks ring any bells? What about Dune and Blue Velvet? Sure, he was no Bruce Willis and certainly no Steve Guttenberg, but he’d done movies and TV shows seen by tens of millions of people that were still pretty fresh in most peoples memory at the time he hosted SNL (if I remember right, Twin Peaks was still on TV at the time of this episode).
You don’t understand why Kyle MacLachlan was considered famous in the early 90s? Twin Peaks ring any bells? What about Dune and Blue Velvet? Sure, he was no Bruce Willis and certainly no Steve Guttenberg, but he’d done movies and TV shows seen by tens of millions of people that were still pretty fresh in most peoples memory at the time he hosted SNL (if I remember right, Twin Peaks was still on TV at the time of this episode).