Is American Culture Too Dishonest?
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For better or worse American culture is foisted upon the world. Hollywood and American celebrity churn out product that is distributed globally. Streaming services, Big Tech, and a host of other US corporations do business everywhere they can. The United States is seen as the military and economic superpower. Leadership, however, comes with scrutiny and is American culture too dishonest? Most in your face, of late, is the whole Donald Trump circus and this has done America no favours internationally. The fact that those Americans who voted have opted to return Trump to the Presidency is quite something.
Dishonest Donald Trump
A compulsive liar, cheat, convicted felon and adjudged sex offender in a civil case Donald Trump is not your typical political leader. The most positive thing that could be said about him is that he appears to wear his failings more openly than some. Perhaps, he truly is the President that America deserves. The United States has been a dishonest imperial power for more than a century. It has had its military and the CIA do its dirty bidding in countless conflicts in Central America, the Middle East, South East Asia and Europe. Governments doing the bidding of the private interests of corporations is nothing new for Western powers, however.
American Judicial Culture Unethical
Is American culture too dishonest? The machination of Trump and his MAGA movement have been shocking to behold. Even more shocking has been the complete failure of the American justice system to hold him to account. The captive Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has been gobsmackingly shocking. To see the truism about how rich folk in America can buy justice confirmed so blatantly has been depressing. The endemic institutional racism in the police and justice systems remains there for all to see. The economic effects of centuries of racism denying opportunities for African Americans has been devastating. The dishonesty among Republicans in positions of authority over decades is unforgivable. Partisan politics bedevils the judicial system and makes a mockery of such things as fairness and impartiality.
Exploiting Profits From Patients In Despair
The dishonesty within American culture goes way beyond the institutions of government and the law courts. The recent gun murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson highlighted the blatant greed of ‘for profit’ corporations and their take over of the health sector. Hospitals and health insurance used to be run by ‘not for profit’ organisations up until the 1990s. Now, you have companies like United Healthcare generating annual revenue in the hundreds of billions of dollars. They do this by putting profit concerns over that of the patients they are supposed to represent. This is dishonesty of a particular sickening variety and people from other countries look at Americans involved in this kind of thing with revulsion. This includes those who are investors in these companies and their bankers.
The Dishonest Teaching Of American History
Is American culture too dishonest? History and how American history is taught to its young people is another example of its fraudulent nature. The great majority of Americans grow up and go to school unaware of swathes of defining historical events. Many of these involved massacres of people and are inconvenient truths for the ruling classes. The education departments seem to have big erasers with which to rub out parts of the nation’s history. Out of sight is out of mind.
“Here is a list of some of the countless massacres in the history of the United States. Most of these massacres were designed to suppress voting rights, land ownership, economic advancement, education, freedom of the press, religion, LGBTQ rights, and/or labor rights of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, and immigrants. While often referred to as “race riots,” they were massacres to maintain white supremacy.”
- Wilmington Massacre 10th Nov 1898
- Battle of Virden 12th Oct 1898
- Lattimer Massacre 10th Sept 1897
- Polk County Massacre 5th Aug 1896
- Wounded Knee Massacre 29th Dec 1890
- Thibodaux Massacre 23rd Nov 1887
- Massacre at Hells Canyon 27th May 1887
- Carroll County Courthouse Massacre 17th March 1886
- Rock Springs Massacre 2nd Sept 1885
- Danville Riot 3rd Nov 1883
- Hamburg Massacre 8th July 1876
- Clinton, Mississippi Massacre 4th Sept 1875
- Vicksburg Massacre 7th Dec 1874
- White League Attacks Black Voters 3rd Nov 1874
- Colfax Massacre 13th April 1873
- Skeleton Cave Massacre 28th Dec 1872
- Los Angeles Chinatown Massacre 24th Oct 1871
- St. Bernard Parish Massacre 25th Oct 1868
- Opelousas Massacre 28th Sept 1868
- Camilla Massacre 19th Sept 1866
- New Orleans Massacre 30th July 1866
- Memphis Massacre 1-3 May 1866
- Ebenezer Creek Massacre 9th Dec 1864
- Sand Creek Massacre 29th Nov 1864
- Union Soldiers Massacred at Fort Pillow 12th April 1864
Continued on at https://www.zinnedproject.org/collection/massacres-us/page/3/
There are another 2 pages of this list and many of these would be unfamiliar to most Americans as being crucial parts of their history. All of these many massacres have a racial element and it is usually the dominant white cohort massacring people of colour. Downplaying these numerous events in history and in most instances consigning them to the forgotten bin is not done accidentally. It is a violent and dishonest people whitewashing their history for future generations.
The Lies Americans Are Told
Out of this dishonest teaching of American history grows a culture brought up on lies. Americans are continually lied to about their country and culture. They are told that they live in the land of the free. Free to what? Free to endlessly pay for everything? ‘User pays’ is the great neoliberal credo. Medicines and medical treatment are more expensive in the United States than most other Western nations. Drugs are way cheaper in Canada. It is a rort designed to make investors in the companies rich at the expense of sick people. They live in a gun culture, where gun manufacturers make huge revenues at the expense of the safety of ordinary Americans.
Nothing Is Free In America
Higher education costs in America:
- The average cost of attendance for a student living on campus at an in-state public 4-year institution is $27,146 per year or $108,584 over 4 years.
- Out-of-state students pay $45,708 per year or $182,832 over 4 years.
- Private, nonprofit university students pay $58,628 per year or $234,512 over 4 years.
- While 4 years is the traditional period to earn a bachelor’s degree, just 42.0% of bachelor’s degree-seeking students graduate within that time.
- 97% of confirmed bachelor’s degree earners graduate within 6 years; the 6-year average cost of attendance is $229,620.
- Students unable to work full-time stand to lose a median annual income of $46,748.
- Student borrowers pay an average of $2,636 in interest each year, and the average student borrower spends roughly 20 years paying off their loans.
- Considering lost income and loan interest, the ultimate price of a typical bachelor’s degree may be as high as $562,868. “
- (https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college)
“Americans owe about $1.6 trillion in student loans as of June 2024 – 42% more than what they owed a decade earlier.”
Yes, there are more companies making profits from the higher education sector in the US. The financialization of everything has occurred in America over the last couple of decades. The nation may have outsourced manufacturing to China and other poorer countries but Wall Street has been busy making life much more expensive for the average American. All the time, folk are assured that neoliberal economics will be more efficient and make stuff cheaper – but it never does. What is does do is make a few much wealthier at the expense of the many in its usual dishonest fashion. Remember the promises of the ‘trickledown effect’? The economics of America are founded on dishonesty and every year they ramp it up even further. Still, Americans vote for Trump and the GOP. Stupid is as stupid does – this should be the real credo for these Americans.
The Dishonesty On American TV
If you watch American network TV there is this air of smugness portrayed in the characters of the shows. You do not get this in, say British TV shows. Storylines in these network dramas are invariably too pat and usually end by reinforcing some obvious ideal of American morality. The message to audiences is that the archetypal American character is supremely confident in his or her lifestyle choices. Most importantly, they consider themselves to be way smarter than the rest. Is this the secret of Donald Trump, reality TV celebrity fake billionaire, and his cult worship by his MAGA fans? The smugness of Donny? Dishonesty about ourselves is, perhaps, the most dangerous of all dishonesties.
The Dishonest Viper’s Nest Of Foreign Affairs
The most treacherous dishonesty is always displayed by nation states in their dealings with each other. Diplomacy is the art of lying gracefully. The cruellest fate is reserved for those individuals who get tangled up by circumstance in this morass of shite. The Lockerbie bombing is one such example. Here there were glaring inadequacies displayed by the British Department of Transport, which resulted in terrorists putting a bomb on board a Pan Am flight out of Heathrow airport. 270 innocent people died in this horrific incident. The PM Margaret Thatcher refused to hold an independent inquiry in her usual arrogant way. The tangled web of foreign governments involved included the US, Britain, Germany, Iran, Palestine, Libya, Holland, and the list goes on. The lies told by American DOJ, British officials, police, diplomats and secret services turned this tragedy into a football kicked around for decades. Dishonesty in the face of severe personal tragedy shone a bright light on just how governments behave no matter the cost to their own citizens. Both the Clintons, at different times, come out of this looking particularly shabby.
“ Lockerbie: A Search for Truth follows Dr Swire and his wife in the wake of the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York, over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. Dr Swire’s daughter had been travelling to visit her boyfriend in America for Christmas, when she became a victim of the deadliest terror attack in British history. The series sees Dr Swire, who lives in Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds, become the nominated spokesperson for the UK victims’ families, who united to demand truth and justice.”
Exporting Dishonesty
The most appalling aspect of America’s culture of dishonesty is its predilection for exporting it to other countries. The publicity departments work overtime to put the most positive spin on everything. Right wing politicians look to Trump as potential role model and inspiration for bringing the toxic concoction to their own neck of the woods. America has brought the world fast food and all those nutritionally bereft gaudy outlets selling their burgers and fried chicken. Streets have become strip malls with neon signs hawking promises of fast, salt and sugar infested high fat foods. In fact, shopping centres now contain the same stores the world over, as accountants and developers have merged and taken over anything independent. These are all Americanisation’s. Globalisation has had a very strong American character to it.
American culture on the screen. Social media is an American invention. American culture on the street via those ubiquitous fast food outlets and retail chains. American companies with their hands in your pockets in the form of subscriptions from Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and the list goes on. Our very lives lack meaning outside of some dishonest American cultural invention. Is American culture too dishonest? I ask you?
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt & Financial Freedom.
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America Matters PDF version
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If you read one book this year make it this one. Knowledge is power & time is running out folks. Every page is filled with insight and truthful accounts of what drives America now and in its past. Great reading for a world on the brink of massive changes – which way will the pendulum tip? Can the greatest nation on earth pull itself out of a tail spin? More than 250 pages of truth serum.
