Page 76 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 76
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
for the country if we faced our crimes of empire. We must not forget that
Martin Luther King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of vi-
olence in the world today” and warned that “A nation that continues year
after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs
of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” We were being warned by
King in the 1960s that Americans had already achieved ideological affin-
ity with the dark side of the American Dream. And clearly, the country
didn’t listen.
Neoliberal capitalism is an adjustment that capitalism had to make
in the face of overproduction and remains a form of state-guided carteli-
zation. If we examine the founding moments of the United States criti-
cally we come to realize that the very idea of the American Dream could
only have been made possible by the extermination of the indigenous
population, the enslavement of African Americans, and the exploitation
of rural and industrial workers. In this process we squander human na-
ture, we allow new technologies to displace workers and it’s the case today
that many middle-class jobs and college degrees, if the right kind, might
give an edge—but only a slight edge—to recent college graduates who are
resigned to a grim enslavement to the corporate wage. But what about
non-union workers, and the labor laws designed to constrain labor rela-
tions and workers’ rights that prohibit the right to organize and act col-
lectively?
Tell me more about Donald Trump and his relationship to the Amer-
ican Dream?
Americans who still worship the American Dream believe deep in their
hearts that a billionaire is better equipped than anyone else to guide the
economy. They believe that Trump exceptionally gifted as a deal-maker,
since he has enormous wealth. Understanding this, Trump is cannily us-
ing the concept of the American Dream with white-knuckled rage and
weapons-grade vitriol to conjure images from the 50s of what was craft-
ed by the then nascent media apparatuses as a white ethnostate. Trump
wants workers to believe that such a long ago defunct world, born from
the swamp of laissez-faire capitalism in the pre-imperialist epoch—can be
recreated once Trump kicks the “illegal immigrants” out of the country
and rewrites his “free trade” deals with Canada and Mexico. This will, he
believes, give him the leverage for his imperial coronation. He has already
become a cult hero, an ethnographic spectacle for scholars to study, the in-
flammation of history—dedicated to the vapors of the awaited prophet of
the working class—he, the self-fashioned populist strongman born with
74
for the country if we faced our crimes of empire. We must not forget that
Martin Luther King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of vi-
olence in the world today” and warned that “A nation that continues year
after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs
of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” We were being warned by
King in the 1960s that Americans had already achieved ideological affin-
ity with the dark side of the American Dream. And clearly, the country
didn’t listen.
Neoliberal capitalism is an adjustment that capitalism had to make
in the face of overproduction and remains a form of state-guided carteli-
zation. If we examine the founding moments of the United States criti-
cally we come to realize that the very idea of the American Dream could
only have been made possible by the extermination of the indigenous
population, the enslavement of African Americans, and the exploitation
of rural and industrial workers. In this process we squander human na-
ture, we allow new technologies to displace workers and it’s the case today
that many middle-class jobs and college degrees, if the right kind, might
give an edge—but only a slight edge—to recent college graduates who are
resigned to a grim enslavement to the corporate wage. But what about
non-union workers, and the labor laws designed to constrain labor rela-
tions and workers’ rights that prohibit the right to organize and act col-
lectively?
Tell me more about Donald Trump and his relationship to the Amer-
ican Dream?
Americans who still worship the American Dream believe deep in their
hearts that a billionaire is better equipped than anyone else to guide the
economy. They believe that Trump exceptionally gifted as a deal-maker,
since he has enormous wealth. Understanding this, Trump is cannily us-
ing the concept of the American Dream with white-knuckled rage and
weapons-grade vitriol to conjure images from the 50s of what was craft-
ed by the then nascent media apparatuses as a white ethnostate. Trump
wants workers to believe that such a long ago defunct world, born from
the swamp of laissez-faire capitalism in the pre-imperialist epoch—can be
recreated once Trump kicks the “illegal immigrants” out of the country
and rewrites his “free trade” deals with Canada and Mexico. This will, he
believes, give him the leverage for his imperial coronation. He has already
become a cult hero, an ethnographic spectacle for scholars to study, the in-
flammation of history—dedicated to the vapors of the awaited prophet of
the working class—he, the self-fashioned populist strongman born with
74
