The American myth

Just saw a TV ad that summarizes our cultural hogwash nicely: "Two things America got right. Cars and freedom."

The very problem! We didn't get cars right or we'd have alternative energy cars getting 200 miles a gallon. We can walk on the moon but can't do this. Yeah, right.

Our freedom exists existentially but not socially, culturally or politically as much as we think because we are effectively powerless to determine the choices we have. We have become consumers first and foremost, Homo consumerus, and as such are victims of corporate marketing plans. You can't even see a serious film when it comes out any more unless you catch it the first week or two because it vanishes. You get to choose between products but have no say whatever in what those products actually are. Minority tastes are especially disregarded.

So in a sense, your degree of freedom of choice is determined by your ability to drop out of mainstream culture and become self-sufficient. I make my own scrapple because I can't buy it here because some corporate marketing entity decided scrapple won't sell in the west. In New Jersey, I get to choose between three popular brands as a matter of course. Almost nobody in Oregon is actually from Oregon any more but this has yet to occur to these marketing geniuses who make regional product rules.

Cars and freedom. Perfect.