Welcome to Middle-Class Lockdown . . .

Some real problems in this article but...

Joe Bageant in dissident voice

But ultimately somewhere between the seven o’clock showing of Law and Order and the third cocktail, or perhaps after that bracing evening trot around the block in your Land’s End shorts with the dogs, the mind settles down to the more relevant issues such as “Do I need a Blackberry, and if so, should I wait for the next generation of technology?”

Still, what about those cages in Gitmo? Or global warming? You and I may presently be yammering our asses off in cyberspace (talk about inauthentic!) about such topics, but most Americans, if they dialogue about those things at all, conduct the dialogue with those voices inside our heads, the one that says: Things cannot be as bad as the alarmists say. They cannot be as bad as I often suspect they are. If there really were such a thing as global warming they would be starting to do something about it. And besides, even if it were true, science will find a way to fix it. If there really were genocide going on in so many places far more people would be concerned. At the same time, every commercial and piece of sports hoopla, every celebrity news item leaves us with the impression that if we have time and money for such things, then matters cannot be all that bad, can they? If the earth were heating up we would surely notice it. If our soldiers and government agencies were torturing people around the world it would make the news. If millions were being exterminated, it would be more obvious, would it not? Look around. Nobody seems worried. Look how normal everything is every day. Look at your wife and your own family. No one is worried. Things cannot be that bad. (more)