Us and Them

Americans worship success.

Australians worship the status quo.

The "American Dream" has always been the story of an impoverished foreigner who comes to the land of opportunity and makes it rich.

The "Australian Dream" has always been to own your own house. This means you are set for life: you might still have to work, but you won't have to worry too much about paying the bills. It is a modest dream. Those who want more than their own square acre of paradise are regarded with universal suspiscion.

Anyone who makes it to the big-time in America is universally respected. Their foibles and misdemeanors are tolerated by the general public (witness the Kennedy family, celebrities like Michael Jackson and even resurrected politicians like Richard Nixon).

Anyone who makes it big in Australia is prone to the "Tall Poppy Syndrome", whereby they are considered fair game for criticism from all and sundry. While this very public process of hacking down the "tall poppies" is frequently unfair, if not totally unwarranted, there is little sympathy for the victims, whose bank accounts tend to survive intact (witness Paul Hogan, Greg Norman and our recently resigned Governor General).

Americans take pride in working hard. Their greatest heroes are businessmen and political figures.

Australians take pride in their capacity for leisure. Our greatest heroes are athletes.

Given all this, is it likely that little Australia will follow the last remaining Superpower down the road to capitalist corporate consummation?

George Monbiot, author of The Age of Consent, claims "Our task is not to overthrow globalisation but to capture it and to use it as a vehicle for humanity's first global democratic revolution."

Sounds good to me.

Meanwhile, George Bush's election campaign is expected to generate around three times the money that will be available to his Democrat opponent. Add to that the huge influence of lobbying corporate institutions like GM and Verizon, (see this Washington Monthly article, Welcome to the Machine) and the battle for control of the free world begins to look decidedly one-sided.

Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer says that "I think that the amount of money that candidates raise in our democracy is a reflection of the amount of support they have around the country."

Not really. It depends on whether the people who support you are rich or poor,powerful or disenfrachised. Democracy, which is supposed to symbolize equality for all, is based on the principle of one vote for each person. If my rich supporters let me launch a media campaign that drowns out your candidate's message, the basic principles of fairness and equality become clouded.

The media is the key player. Is it possible for the media to remain non-partisan when so much money and so many deals hinge on media-generated public perception? Consider this example from the New Zealand Herald:

Two reporters for an American television station were working on a story critical of the giant chemical firm Monsanto. They were asked by their bosses to soften their report. They refused and were fired. The station had recently been bought by a company owned by Rupert Murdoch. Defending their firing of the reporters, the station executives explained: "We paid $3 billion for these stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is."

Enough said.