Coke gets America, conservatives don't

By Frank Moraes

I have a personal note about the Coke diversity commercial which is embedded below. I didn't watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, but it was on at the place I was staying, so I saw a bit of it. And part of that was the Coke commercial. It is extremely beautiful and the sound design was just perfect. But I only really got one thing out of it: the Muslim women buying Chinese food from a street vendor. That was totally brilliant!

It bothers me that others look at the ad and think that it divides us. Such people have an incredibly simplistic view of community. People don't have to share religion or language or anything specifically. What binds us together is not our particular totems. What binds us together is shown in that image of Americans from different places meeting to do business. That is America. And that is what conservatives always claim to be in favor of.


We can disagree about most things. The essence of what we are is commerce. In times long past we were bound together to hunt and gather and farm. Now we bind together because one of us makes delicious Chinese food and one of us wants to eat delicious Chinese food. What is more American than that?

All my life -- five decades! -- I have gone to Chinese restaurants. And then as now, they always had menus that looked like the image above. The fact that they had Chinese characters on them did not make the restaurants un-American. Nor did the fact that the waiter often spoke almost no English. That's why the menu items are numbered! So we can do that most American of things: buy stuff in the most convenient way possible.

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Craziest Republican of the Day: Steve King

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Rep. Steve King of Iowa may or may not be the craziest Republican -- it's undeniable that he's up at the top of the list, but obviously the competition is stiff -- but he leads the pack in our ongoing CRD series.

By my count, it's his seventh appearance as CRD. The previous for were for:

-- Introducing legislation recognizing the "importance of Christmas and the Christian faith";
-- Saying that same-sex marriage is part of "a push for a socialist society" in America;
-- Saying that he "empathized" with the suicide bomber who attacked an IRS office in Texas;
-- Saying that Obama "favors the black person";
-- Saying that there are babies "in garbage cans around this country" that don't receive health care; and
-- Saying that it would be okay to ask people in hospital about their immigration status.

And then there was the time we noted his bigoted idiocy.

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So what is it today? Here's HuffPo:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said Thursday that diversity has never been America's strong suit, so lawmakers should pass his bill to make English the official U.S. language in the name of unifying the nation.

"One of the great things about America is we've been unified by a common language. That common language, of course, is English," King said during a press conference on his bill. "Our language is getting subdivided by some forces of the federal government. It is time to speak with a common voice."

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The bill has no chance of becoming law, but it has come under fire from immigration activists who say it would isolate immigrant populations. Others have charged that groups pushing for the bill are racist.

King pushed back on both charges and said his bill is aimed at bringing the country together. After all, he said, diversity has never been America's strong point.

"The argument that diversity is our strength has really never been backed up by logic," King told The Huffington Post. "It's unity is where our strength is. Our Founding Fathers understood that. Modern-day multiculturalists are defying that."

I'm not sure what "logic" has to do with it, but it certainly seems reasonable that a community is stronger when it builds upon the strengths of multiple groups. The right views multiculturalism as divisive, but actually it can be the source of a powerfully inclusive unity, with different "cultures" maintaining their distinctiveness while contributing to a broader understanding of "the nation." The alternative is exclusiveness and bigotry.

Furthermore, how can he say that diversity is not a strength of America. America may not have been terribly diverse at the outset, but its history is essentially a history of the immigration of diverse groups from around the world. Really, what if America had remained purely English? What if it had never benefitted from influxes of Irish and Italians, Chinese and Eastern Europeans? And what of the many contributions of those brought over in chains, the Africans slaves who finally found freedom? If you want to see what America is like without an appreciation for diversity, just consider the treatment of the indigenous peoples at the hands of the white conquerors. Doesn't all this seem... logical?

King and his may or may not be motivated by bigotry, but he is certainly motivated by ignorance and fear. As for me, I happen to believe in America as something other than, as something greater than, a culturally exclusive, and narrow, community. I happen to think that its greatness lies in its expansive ideals, and in the wonderful diversity of Americans who call themselves American, love America, and contribute to America's brilliantly multifaceted identity while also retaining their cultural particularities.

And that includes language. King may want everyone to speak English, and I am not denying that the members of any community need to be able to communicate with one other, but the fact is, English is already the country's de facto official language. There is no need to legislate it. And I would like to think, contra King's cultural narrowness, that America is a large enough nation, and a great enough one, to accept people who speak many different languages, and to expect that its citizens speak not just English but another language or two as well. 

That's the way the world is heading, towards greater integration, distances shortened with travel and technology. You can either accept that and see America as part of a larger international community or you can stick your head up your ass. Steve King, ignorantly longing for the unicultural glory days of the 18th century, has made his choice clear.

Paradigm lost

By Carl

Sure seems like I have a lot to say on this topic.

I happened to watch Michael Moore's SiCKO last night, and this theme of paradigms of American culture and politics swirled through my mind yet again.

If you've seen the film, then you likely recall Moore's trip to England and France to investigate "socialized medicine" with its concommitant horror stories of people dying in waiting rooms and postponing critical surgeries and bureaucracy out the wazoo over the slightest protest in treatment, how you can't choose your own doctors and how doctors are badly underpaid and treated and...

Well, you get the drift of the right wing talking points regarding single-payer healthcare.

Naturally, Moore pretty much debunks those forthwith. Yes, the film takes a POV that is probably at best generally accurate but biased towards only showing positive stories ("So how much did you pay for the delivery?" "Nothing." "You mean you can just walk out of the hospital with a baby and no bill???"); however, the generally accepted truths of nearly everyone he speaks to in England and France is that American health care is the pits compared to European healthcare and that the system in place in Europe works without creating an undue burden on the taxpayers.

People still drive nice cars and doctors can afford million dollar homes, and even the middle class can afford a comfortable apartment and a nice television on $80,000 a year combined salaries. In France. Where you get unlimited sick leave, a 35 hour work week, and minimum five weeks' paid vacation.

Sweet deal, huh? Mind you, the average French worker is more productive than the average American worker. Gee... can't imagine how treating a human adult like, well, an adult might engender a better sense of loyalty than all these "team building exercises" and sloganeering!

Makes you wonder what is wrong with this country?

There were a few telling incidents and quotes in the movie that made me think about this column today, which I had planned on writing anyway.

1) Tony Benn, a socialist former member of the British parliament was interviewed by Moore on camera. Put it this way: even the British call him a far left-winger. He had some interesting things to say, including the following: Keeping people hopeless and pessimistic -- see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled -- first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them... An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern. Pretty remarkable statement, when you ponder it for a moment.

What is the best way to keep a nation frightened? Yes, a terror attack works, of course, but that has limited impact on long term governance, a goal of both parties here.

No, the best way to frighten and demoralize a people is to make them think the enemy lies within our borders. It could be the blacks. It could be the undocumented workers. It could be the latte-sipping liberal elite. It could be the John-Deere-cap-wearing rednecks. It could be the working classes that cling to their guns and their God in their desperation, even.

But the enemy lies within our borders and we must be vigilant.

The enemy DOES lie within our borders, but it's not the enemy we think it is.

2) In summing up the differences, not just in healthcare but in the attitudes of the citizens of nations like England, France, and even Cuba, Moore says, They think of 'we first,' not 'me first'.

This goes hand-in-hand with the great cultural divide, I think, I referenced in point one. It's hard to think of "we first" in America for a slew of reasons, not least of which is simply the massive physical distances between "us" and "them". "They" are the flyover states, or the coast-dwellers. "We" are the true Americans. "We" know better than "they" do.

It's hard to think of "we first" because we are all hyphenate-Americans. We all self-identify with another place: Irish-American, Russian-American, Dominican-American, African American. Hell, we even have to refer to the indigenous people with a hyphenate, Native American, so as not to exclude them! Our tribe comes ahead of all others.

This diversity has had some profound and good impacts on America: from different backgrounds, we have not only derived different "American" foods (hot dogs, German; pizza, Italian) but different ideas, different perceptions have become inured into American culture.

But only after the feared "enemy within" was absorbed and assimilated.

All this, however, is hung on a backdrop of the very American "Protestant work ethic"... a German import, by the way.

3) While pondering the French culture, with its universal healthcare and its government-paid college tuition (not a loan, a grant and out of pocket costs are nominal, under a thousand euros), and dollar-a-day childcare for working parents, Moore points out that the French government is terrified of its workers, and proceeds to show footage of various strikes across France.

Hmm. A government serving the people, instead of the people serving the government. Interesting concept!

While we here in America are trying to downsize our government, put the "people's money back in the people's business community's pocket," in other nations, they take the people's money and use it for the benefit of the people!

Wow. Any coincidence that the US is ranked 37th on the list of health-care services, just ahead of Slovenia, despite the fact that we outspend every other nation on the planet, including China (which doesn't even place in the top 50, so at least they're getting bang for their bucks!)

We need to reorganize the priorities of this country, and sadly, neither Obama nor McCain (nor Clinton, hedging my bets) is going to pull the levers and push the buttons necessary to do this (maybe Clinton might -- might).

We collect hundreds of billions in tax revenues, and the complaint about universal health care, or any one of a number of social programs, is "it's going to cost the taypayers money."

Yeah. And as Tony Benn put it, If we can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.

Americans are among the most generous, giving people on the planet. When a disaster strikes in Myanmar or China or Peru, Americans are the first with their wallets open, giving to the Red Cross, or to Doctors Without Borders.

I would advance the cause of universal healthcare (first) with a simple question: "If you could help your neighbor in a crisis, would you give him a dollar?"

"People pay taxes not because government needs us to. People pay taxes because other people need us to."

That ought to be the mantra of anyone running for President. We've lost a sense of community in this country. That community threatened the entrenched interests of the corporate and administrative sectors. People had a bit of power, but lost it in the 70s and 80s.

President Clinton tried to bring it back, but even his attempt was derailed by the powers that be. President Bush has further eroded and blunted that power under the guise of "homeland security," a permanent terror state devised to punish people who get out of line along with genuine threats to the nation.

To think that the next president won't use these tools is like asking me to stop using my perfectly good left hand. That's simply not going to happen, no matter how well-intentioned I might be. I'll slip up and so will the next president.

We have to take the country back.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)