America’s Descent Into Madness - Truthdig

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America’s Descent Into Madness - Truthdig

The Politics of Cruelty

America’s Descent Into Madness

by HENRY GIROUX

America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.
– John le Carré

America is descending into madness. The stories it now tells are filled with cruelty, deceit, lies, and legitimate all manner of corruption and mayhem.  The mainstream media spins stories that are largely racist, violent, and irresponsible —stories that celebrate power and demonize victims, all the while camouflaging its pedagogical influence under the cheap veneer of entertainment. Unethical grammars of violence now offer the only currency with any enduring value for mediating relationships, addressing problems, and offering instant pleasure. A predatory culture celebrates a narcissistic hyper-individualism that radiates a near sociopathic lack of interest in or compassion and responsibility for others. Anti-public intellectuals dominate the screen and aural cultures urging us to shop more, indulge more, and make a virtue out of the pursuit of personal gain, all the while promoting a depoliticizing culture of consumerism. Undermining life-affirming social solidarities and any viable notion of the public good, right-wing politicians trade in forms of idiocy and superstition that mesmerize the illiterate and render the thoughtful cynical and disengaged.   Military forces armed with the latest weapons from Afghanistan play out their hyper-militarized fantasies on the home front by forming robo SWAT teams who willfully beat youthful protesters and raid neighborhood poker games.  Congressional lobbyists for the big corporations and defense contractors create conditions in which war zones abroad can be recreated at home in order to provide endless consumer products, such as high tech weapons and surveillance tools for gated communities and for prisons alike.

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America’s Descent Into Madness - Truthdig

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH OUR WORLD? THIS IS A FILM FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO KNOW." Every meaningful change starts with awareness. In our culture, we not only praise psychopaths in the highest positions of power, but in many cases, they became our role models. Challenge your beliefs! We have delved into the world of psychopaths and heroes and revealed something crucial about us.
This movie is narrated by Peter Coyote, with Psychologists Paul Babiak and Robert Hare.
http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi204971545/