The South American Way

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An eye-catching item from the May 1, 2006 New Yorker:

In the ongoing South Americanization of political culture north of the border—a drawn-out historical journey whose markers include fiscal recklessness, an accelerating wealth gap between the rich and the rest, corruption masked by populist rhetoric, a frank official embrace of the techniques of “dirty war,” and, by way of initiating the present era, a judicial autogolpe installing a dynastic presidente—what has been dubbed the Revolt of the Generals is one of the feebler effusions.*

South Americanization.  It’s a wonderful conceit that will no doubt make the rounds of dinner parties and earnest discussions of the failings of the current junta.  Of course we can expect our overly sensitive neighbors to the south to object to this characterization.  They’ve not forgotten, like we have, Allende, Arbenz, and the other democratically-elected Latin American leaders we removed from power—all of this before we sank into the depths of our South Americanization.

But what progress this new political culture represents!  Before we were South Americanized, “dirty war” was out of the question and we had to resort to killing people like the Vietcong by tidier means.  When we enslaved the Africans and interned the Japanese we were no doubt forced to use a purer, more nuanced North American form of state brutality.

But now it’s cojones all out, people.  Ay, caramba!

From my vantage point here in the heartland of America, I see, quite frankly, more signs of Disneyfication than of South Americanization.  I see field after field of anaesthetized, consumerist sheep only vaguely aware of the nefarious forces that maintain the flow of corporate profits and, by logical extension, our American way of life.  The Devil may doff his hat and show us his horns because we’re simply much too sated to care.  Baaaaa!

If our country is headed South, it simply doesn’t have far to travel, so let’s enjoy the ride because detrás de nosotros viene the fucking lluvia.

_____

* “Rummyache” by Hendrik Hertzberg.

Comments

[ahfukit]

Thanks to Google Translate I no longer need to consult my hispanic neighbors:

behind us fucking comes the rain

[donbeto]

¡Bien dicho!
Solo leo inglés pero no lo hablo ni lo escribo....creo que estoy contribuyendo a la sud-americanización de los EU.
Saludo