When patriots parrot propaganda against America

[snousle]

I hear, fairly often, and as recently as this morning, phrases like "America doesn't manufacture anything anymore". This typically comes from the mouth of right-wing rah-rah patriots who, in theory, care about America's image and international prestige.

The problem, as anyone who ever looks at the numbers already knows, is that this isn't true; the US remains, by a small margin, the worlds largest manufacturer, at about $1.7T compared to China's $1.3T (2010). And, as we might recall from the USSR during the 60s, communist nations have a habit of exaggerating their economic output. JUST A LITTLE.

Even if China did manufacture more than the US in nominal terms, making a big deal out of that would still be propagandistic; US manufacturing output per capita is still much larger than China's, in part because US workers are more productive. (Per worker, the US productivity advantage is enormous; wages here are correspondingly higher, but you get what you pay for.) The trend, I agree, is not encouraging, since the size of the US manufacturing sector is going slowly down, while China's is indisputably growing, and if we take the numbers at face value, China will indeed take first place in the next few years. But even looking far into the future, the US manufacturing sector will be a long way from "nothing".

So what we have in this statement is a morsel of explicitly anti-American propaganda dressed up as a right wing talking point. The question is, why? What is it that gets certain ideas labeled as anti-American and others not? It seems to me that unfairly disparaging American manufacturing capacity is directly subversive to American economic interests, yet this sort of crankiness routinely gets a pass.

This is a very, very strange country.

Comments

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

I think it comes from the concept "We love 'our' country but hate the U.S. Gov't" type of patriot

[pink-halen.livejournal.com]

I think manufacturing has become invisible because they have moved into isolated business parks and away from view. We see pictures of closed factories. We see pictures of downtown factories turned into lofts. Manufacturing has gotten more sophisticated. They don't need the spaces the had in the past. They don't need the people the needed in the past. But I'm sure you are correct. America is still going strong.

Along with that foreign goods have become more visible. All the little things that we used to make are being imported. Clothing and Kitchen goods are imported. We cannot see the labels on buildings or highways. A lot of people don't know that foreign branded cars are really made here.

I don't think it is anti American as much as it is defeatist. The right feels that they have lost a war they didn't know they were fighting. They believe we are becoming unimportant like Great Britain did when they lost the Empire.

A lot of the problem stems from lack of education. I believe that our country started losing ground when we started voting down school bond issues in the 1960s. As education suffers fundamentalism rises. Those people don't believe in facts like the ones you point out. It's God's will, you know.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

Maybe confusing the populace is good for business. (Or their type of business.)

[sig-info.livejournal.com]

Aside from the "fact"'s inaccuracy, it fits perfectly within the tenets of conservative ideology: Things Are Getting Worse, So We Must Return to the Good Old Days. Absent actual* instances of how the country is worse off, one must manufacture threats to the nation. Hence we get scare stories about terrorists and economic competition, and the various "traditional values under threat" attacks (the so-called wars on religion, marriage, and Christmas). All serve to affirm the conservative worldview.

A second factor is the Rust Belt. When you think "US manufacturing", what comes to mind? For a lot of USAians, it's steel and automobiles. I don't know how healthy those industries are on paper, but the perception is that those industries have greatly shrunk since their heyday decades ago.

Finally, as for why conservatives would spout misinformation... why should progressives have a monopoly on cognitive dissonance?


*disregarding inconvenient (read: progressive causes) ones such as declining real wages and access to health care, etc.

[equinas.livejournal.com]

That would be me.

[equinas.livejournal.com]

Not to be the contrarian Libertarian (hey, that rhymes!), but I've heard this comment mostly made by liberals who were using it to make the point of how the American workforce has turned into a lazy, comsumptionist society with no work ethic, and how the socialist/communist governments who "share everything and produce so much" are s much better than we are (aka Obama Apologetics 101).

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

"..What is it that gets certain ideas labeled as anti-American and others not?"


I hear this complaint from Mike, who I consider a moderate. I think much has to do with the provenance of those who make those compalints, who are IMHO Baby Boomers, who grew up in a world where America was the only country making anything. Of course, it helped that our weapons factories were still intact and were ready for US manufacturers to snap up after WWII.

As the Baby Boomers grew up they found more money could be made in service or finance rather than product manufacturing which emphasized profit making rather than domestic manufacturing. This is very much why I plan to leave my current factory job. Also US workers became used to things like health insurance and retirement benefits. Why shouldn't manufacturers try overseas workers who have no concept of health insurance and whose homes are dirtier than the factories?

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

What is it that gets certain ideas labeled as anti-American and others not?

Two words: Fox News.

Any Republican idea is American, any Democratic idea is socialist and Un-American. There was a time when we worked together and considered everybody to be Americans. Now, we move closer and closer to a new civil war.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

I agree with Mike. I think that's what's wrong with America today. When he and I grew up, 70-80% of American business were small businesses with 100 or fewer employees, and the idea was to make a product and concentrate on that.

Nowadays, that sort of attitude would never survive. With the competition of big corporations, you'd be out of business in a week.

Now it's all about the stock market, gaining a monopoly, and making money doing nothing.

When I wuz a kid, there were a dozen potato chip manufacturers. Now there's one: Lays.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

That's because the right-wingers - the ones that spread the disinformation rather than the parrots - want the industrial base to go. it has these pesky workers who need to be paid, better to go overseas, and people be brainwashed into thinking there isn't X or Y, and if you can make them do your bidding ineffectually and get all riled up while your at it, all the better.

Like Thatcher, all the neo-cons want left is service industries, cos those manufacturing industries tend to come with guilds or unions. They want the jobs to go abroad so they don't have to deal with the unions or organised workforce. This might sound crazy, but Thatcher and now Cameron unless it's about arms manufacture want exactly that.

I suspect as the Republicans have a very similar core set of beliefs, that they drum up faux-patriotism to get votes but behind the scenes are selling 'New England (and the rest of the States) by the Pound' to paraphrase to multinationals and the likes of Murdoch. Cannot be trusted.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

aaargh! Your Avatar! IT BURNS! IT BURNS!

(For those not under the Lympics PoLiCe STATE Borg, pretty sure that's the London Olympics font. Ugh how I hate that and the logo, especially since it represents a cost my city upto £24 billion)

[equinas.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but that is patently ridiculous and about the most contrived political accusation I've ever heard.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

Accusation? Well in the UK it was the truth; Thatcher was intentionally out to destroy the union's base, at whatever cost, and Cameron has inherited such attitudes.

Whether the neo-cons in the US are doing same is up for debate - but they both take inspiration from the same economists & political thinkers, so hence mentioning it.

'most contrived political accusation' - heh I doubt that, what hole have you been living in? Obviously never met any real socialists - wouldn't surprise me living in the US since they're a rare species since McCarthy. 'Stop Saying Words'? - how polite, especially coming from someone who says exactly nothing except a rude statement which adds zero to the discussion, and has exactly one public post.

Whatever,*eyeroll*.

[equinas.livejournal.com]

You're right, I've been to 42 countries, worked in 6, and speak 5 languages, but I've never met a true socialist.

Far from being a troll, I gave your comment the exact amount of words it merited. But since it bothers you so much, let me add this: as a moderate Libertarian, I despise the NeoCons' bloating of the federal government as much as I detest Obama's. They are the exact opposite of the true Republican (now Libertarian) platform of minimal federal government and expanded State sovereignty. GW Bush had a choice and unfortunately went with NeoCon philosophy and that put my country on the path to economic ruin. Obama will carry it to the finish line, but that's a different debate.

So, while I oppose the NeoCons as much as I oppose socialism (including "true" socialism which cannot work in the U.S.), I called your comment "contrived" because it was a completely ludicrous labyrinth you waded through to arrive at the conclusion that ANY conservative would want everything but service industries eliminated, since the majority of conservative voters in this country are still blue-collar rednecks with union jobs. On top of that, you didn't present it as a possibility, but as a fact, which it is not.

Is that better?

P.S.: While getting 6 different emails while you're crafting your reply is interesting, maybe collecting your thoughts and saying everything with one or two edits would be better.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

I'll make as many edits as I want. *shrug*

I wasn't talking about the neo-con voters, and sorry but dunno where Obama comes into Tony's post as the discussion was about right wing patriots, but hey, just slap that one in there randomly, I don't mind. Although it does seem a troll move, but he's about as socialist as Tony Blair was, so I have no love for the guy either.

I was talking about those neo-cons in power, that mislead the workers into believing they really *care* about their interests, while practically doing all they can to do the opposite. There are blue collar conservatives here, my Dad was one until Thatcher came along...just as there are gay Republicans. Delusion is a bitch.

So that disjunct is an interesting one, because the opposition to worker power and the rise of China and far east economies that invest in the very companies funding right-wing parties via corporates directly does conflict with their voter's stance. Here they mostly ignore them and vote out initiatives for higher tax brackets, reduce social health care (we have that, you know. How pinkoleftocommie of us) and yes promote McJobs that don't lead to careers and tut about corporates moving overseas while giving them massive tax breaks (Vodafone, Amazon etc) to do so, making it far more viable.

So if you can't see that logic is probably in place in the US, and they'll probably follow Thatcher's example (if not already: look at Detroit) then you'll see in the near future what such economics lead to - then my usual catchphrase which some poor sods take literally: 'I can't help you'.

And yes as an aside I think Obama won't or can't reverse such things, even 13 years of Labour could not do that with the northern industrial sector, after nearly 20 years of right-wing attack it was completely trashed.

[equinas.livejournal.com]

You're extremely partisan with a very narrow view of how economics actually works. Keynesian much, perhaps?

Sorry socialism and ever-increasing debt go hand-in-hand, and are not sustainable.

And my comment about Obama was clearly made as an aside (did you miss the "different debate" part of that line?). I do not troll Tony's posts. He, unlike you, has some rationality to his debating. You don't, so I'm done.