Stock image courtesy of the Italian Cultural Institute.
I have to defend the town I lived in from 1996 to 2002 from the all too flippant calumny in this comment. (And incidentally Nancy Pelosi, one of whose Congressional campaigns I worked on, as well as heaps of local ones for both the Democrats and the Greens… - she’s so right in this comment about the Clinton campaign.) As I’ve said about a thousand times before, pro-Americanism or anti-Americanism is the dumb. It’s far too complex a country to condemn or praise in toto, and - incidentally - one I’m proud to be a citizen of. But I will say, as someone largely brought up in Brisneyland, that San Francisco is one part of the world where there’s enough cultural similarities that we can feel, not at home, but able to negotiate our way into feeling like this is Heimat, as it were. Or, at least, I felt that way. All the Bush lovin’ RWDBs in the Ozblogosphere, I suspect, would actually feel far more comfortable in SF than in, say, rural Tennessee. But I’d be interested in hearing from others who’ve spent time in the States what their take on that whole weird world is. With all due respect to Melbourne, and balls of string, and alleyways and such, I don’t think Australia really does urbanism. No need to be worried, because cities in North America have been there for such a longer time.
This isn’t really the question you asked, but I think up until a few years ago, it was actually somewhat legitimate to characterise America as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Despite the variation in accents and landscape, Americans practised a rather impressive conformity and obedience. Of course much of this remains in American culture (eg, the clapping at the end of every sentence during the State of the Union Address, as mentioned in a comment in the earlier post you linked to), but to its great credit, Americans appears to have matured greatly within the last few years. Americans have grown-up, in a sense, and are beginning to display the complexities of thought that many citizens of the world have indulged in for years.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that depending on your point of view, America used to be mostly good or bad, whereas in Australia, most would agree that there are some good bits, and some bad. America was the land of extreme-right, which would — for obvious reasons — lead to a kind of polarisation of opinion from outsiders.
Also, I think your comment about SF vs Tennessee is questionable, and entirely dependent on what qualities an ex-pat Aussie values most. American cities might be more cosmopolitan, but they’re also far ruder and crueler than anywhere in Australia. One overriding feature of Australia is a lovely down-to-earth brand of friendliness, which is usually only found in rural and southern America (despite what New Yorkers might claim!).
All of this is a moot point, of course, because my suspicion is that a good number of so-called ‘conservatives’ in Australia would be shocked to discover just how dangerous the American right-wing is, and would eagerly scurry back to the safe confines of sanity in Australia.
“cities in North America have been there for such a longer time”
Forgive my ignorance, Kim, but wasn’t San Francisco completely demolished in the earthquake and fire of 1906? Um, and wasn’t it just a little mission station until the gold rush in the late 1840s - making Melbourne a city about a decade younger, surely not ’such a longer time’?
I’ve been accused of flippant calumny! Hooray!
I reckon of the (very few) US cities I’ve visited, Boston matches Melbourne in many ways. If central Boston has a pleasant urban ambience, then so does Melbourne (and Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart). Perhaps it’s the rivers?
Well, I had one of the best Vietnamese meals of my life in San Francisco. And that includes the ones I’ve had in Vietnam.
Actually Kim, Frisco does feel very Melbourne-ish to me. Basically the same latitude above the equator I think is wot does it.
The cold winter… great museums…interesting alleyways…good music…the tenderloin is a bit distressing, but not really much worse than around Flinders Station at 2am…Marlboros $3.75 a pack. OK, some things are different.
Of course, as a persona de Nueva York, I am obliged to point out the vastly superior nature of East Coast living.
But yeah, to your general point, what’s not to love about that crazy place we call ‘America’ when we mean the USA? Our two lands are the same size, which means there’s at least as much diversity and wonder here in the States as Australia contains - that’s gotta be good for a start!
I’m gonna do some Boomer-baiting here: all the people I know who have a visceral dislike for things American are basically middle aged to mid-sixties. Coincidence?
It’s a good thing to be a laughing stock when the inmates of Bedlam are laughing at a visitor.
SF is a fine city. A series of historical forces and accidents has preserved SF as a pedestrian city whose inner residential areas were never torn down and never suffered the destructive level of blight associated with the era of “white flight” in many other US cities.
Thus SF has the physical plant and the cultural resources to accommodate a diversity of people living in close proximity to each other.
Melbourne shunned its inner areas for decades. Until the 1970s, recent migrants, students and bohemians lived in down-market digs that are now triple the price of the average Melb residence.
More recently, there has been a huge return of young professionals and empty-nesters to downtown Melbourne and its near surrounds. As Kim implies, this is both a new phenomenon and one driven by marketing that borders on the twee. But for all the panicking over alcopops, this transition has been remarkably smooth and peaceful. There were few poor folks to displace. The commercial property bust of the early 1990s drove a need to rethink urban land use. And let’s pay due credit to both John Cain and Jeff Kennett.
One day, balls of string will be forgotten and what will remain is a city so very like SF, whose good fortune was that it never had to reinvent itself (give or take an earthquake or two).
And yes, Australian RWDBs would probably feel more at home in SF than in rural Tennessee, if only they gave up their practice of snake-handling.
Katz on inner suburban Melbourne: “But for all the panicking over alcopops, this transition has been remarkably smooth and peaceful. There were few poor folks to displace.”
You may be right but I’m not so sure. May I quote a graffito from Fitzroy, 1971? “Piss off, trendies!”
Yeah, it’s not decisive evidence, but there was SOME ill-feeling towards an influx of poor students, poorer bohemians, professionals buying terrace houses to convert into offices/consulting rooms. I saw it & heard it.
But perhaps it was smoother than similar gentrifications in other cities? I dunno.
Perhaps it would have been best not to mention Melbourne, lest this become a Melbourne thread. SF is very like it though, IMHO, just with more hills.
Any lazy folks thinking of going, I’d recommend training - find the closest thing to a 45 degree incline and do yourself a favour.
But parts of the Mission and the Castro where I mostly hung out are very like Fitzroy/Northcote/Brunswick, and the actual CBD was heaps of fun, rather than a Perth-style shops & offices soul vacuum. The people - well I can hardly comment having hung out entirely with wealthy young professional couples with Prius, spoilt child in $100 hemp overalls and an account at Rainbow Grocery (because Wholefoods is getting soooo corporate). These are the people that give SF a “bad name” with the RWDBs of course, but they seemed to be in the minority.
If you extend your net to the entire Bay area, then yes, it feels a lot like parts of Australia. The suburbs of Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto could easily be the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, the North shore of Sydney or the Western suburbs of Perth, and of all the places I’ve been in North America this area is the one place I’ve always felt like I was at home.
The city itself? Well the Westfield Centre actually spells centre the non-American way so it’s a start. It’s a great city, but I always find one distinct difference, and this isn’t the case say in NY or Las Vegas: beggars. Thousands of them. I don’t always feel safe in SF (and it depends on the part of town somewhat) due to someone always asking you for money. This is not to say we don’t have homeless people, but in SF the homeless are like rabbits.It’s a constant reminder that the richest empire in the history of the world doesn’t look after its least fortunate.
Duncan - I had a much better feeling from the panhandlers in SF than NY. This is about 6 months ago. 2 anecdotes:
In the Castro outside Walgreens was obviously the spot for rent boys, who seem pretty good at sizing up the punters. I was only ever asked for change, no innuendo I could detect, but overheard other guys getting a line like “I’m new in town and I don’t have any place to stay. Can you, y’know, help me out?”
In the city by the cable-car turntable, a guy with a sign saying Merry Fuckin’ Christmas, and yelling it out every minute or so. Passing cops didn’t blink. As I went to take a photo he says “You wanna fuckin’ picture, gimme a fuckin’ dollar man!”. Seriously, you can’t argue with a charm offensive like that.
I haven’t spent long periods of time in the USA, but have visited on a number of occasions. I’m actually off to San Francisco for the first time (at least since I was a kid) next week.
I do instinctively dislike travelling to the USA for conferences compared to Europe, though. In Europe, you end up staying in a charming little hotel in the center of some small town with a pedestrianized square, lots of pretty buildings, and a train or bus system to take you to the local places of interest - and they’re usually pretty interesting.
With the exception of one conference in Portland, Maine (the Bush family’s traditional summer vacation spot along with the other old money; they don’t have bad taste on this matter…), conferences in the USA involve: a) dealing with incompetent, slow American airport security, b) being dumped at an anonymous hotel in the ugly outskirts of some random part of flyover country, c) being stuck in the hotel, as you can’t get anywhere without a car, and d) there’s nowhere vaguely interesting to go and visit.
So, while I wouldn’t be so ridiculously naive as to judge the USA based on such superficial experiences, it does tend to be a grind as a visitor.
I lived in SF for a year in 1996, but I haven’t visited since 2003.
I think you’ll enjoy SF Robert. Its certainly more European than most American cities, in that it has a small centre, lots of “pretty buildings”, public transport that actually works, and people of all incomes use.
The homelessness is pretty shocking though, and you can move from incredible wealth to desperate poverty within a few blocks.
I’ve spent a few years living in Denver and absolutely loved it. If it wasn’t for the really long distances and high cost required to visit family back in Australia I’d probably still be there. The Rockies are amazing and I was really surprised to see how much government support there was for things like parks, hiking trails etc.
Americans get stereotyped a lot, but most of whom I worked with were really nice and not really that right-wing (though this is with programmers who are probably a bit different from the norm).
I really like SF, but only the city itself, the suburbs/cities around it are often generic american suburbs. Not sure how anyone can afford to live in SF city though!
Duncan - I agree the number of homeless is quite shocking. Though the worst situation I saw was over the border when visiting Canada one Christmas - walking to hotel in way below sub zero conditions seeing homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk in sleeping bags. Even in Denver the homeless shelters used to remove restrictions (eg no drunk/drugged out people) when it got below a certain temperature.
You need to pick your conferences better
Those in NY City and SF can be lots of fun. Agreed though that those in the middle of nowhere can be quite isolating. Unless you happen to have the fortune of attending one at a ski resort 
I find your comment strange, Heather, and maybe a little patronising:
This isn’t really the question you asked, but I think up until a few years ago, it was actually somewhat legitimate to characterise America as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Despite the variation in accents and landscape, Americans practised a rather impressive conformity and obedience. Of course much of this remains in American culture (eg, the clapping at the end of every sentence during the State of the Union Address, as mentioned in a comment in the earlier post you linked to), but to its great credit, Americans appears to have matured greatly within the last few years. Americans have grown-up, in a sense, and are beginning to display the complexities of thought that many citizens of the world have indulged in for years.
Why is rallying around a few national symbols - clapping during the State of the Union Address, for instance, or saluting the flag, etc - immature? In the context of America’s 18th-century revolutionary history, couldn’t these be seen as a sign of liberty, and uniqueness? Refusing to abide by certain national codes and standards is not in itself non-conformist. Many self-styled dissenters over time - be they Marxists, or anarchists, or socialists, or fascists - have been slavishly obedient to a particular ideological code. In order to determine whether taking part in a national tradition is ‘conformist’ or not, surely you have to understand the reasons for this national symbol existing in the first place, and its meaning?
Your argument that Americans now share the ‘complexities’ of the rest of the world in a way that they didn’t before is also bizarre. How can we say, for instance, that a nation that has been a republic since the 18th century, but has long-standing monarchist and royalist traditions, is any less complex than nations like Australia or the UK?
I spent four weeks in the states in (their) winter of last year, and loved every minute of it. Though I realise now that I spent almost my whole time visiting the so-called postcard locations - NY, San Francisco, Boston - and not even very much of those. I’ve always believed that the only way to holiday is to spend months, maybe years, living in a place, and really getting to know it - and my postcard visit to the States confirmed me in this belief.
Lovely people, culture down ever alleway, and terrible, swill-like coffee. Ah, USA…
Yeah, I lived in Pacific Heights, near Fillmore St, very wealthy neighbourhood. I had to regularly push a homeless person on the porch out of the way to get out my door in the morning.
Apart from the stray revolutionary war and Civil War that cost 3,000,000 lives, and a couple of massive and successful campaigns of civil disobedience in the 1960s, you are correct.
Could it be, perhaps, we are thinking more like Americans? It’s like 30 year old who observes to his father, “Fifteen years ago, you and I disagreed about everything. It’s remarkable how much more mature you have become since then.”
When we think about liberty, independence, self-realisation, respect for diversity, we think in an American accent. My world would be unimaginable without the benign influence of the great American, liberal tradition.
I guess I was thinking of East Coast cities, Hal9000!
[munches popcorn]
When we think about liberty, independence, self-realisation, respect for diversity, we think in an American accent.
Which one, Katz? Standard Midwestern, Southern, Boston, or African-American Vernacular English? We all owe the US a debt in the vocabulary for the concepts outlined above. That doesn’t make us roll our Rs in our thoughts.
I think like I speak - Australian-flavoured British with a few Canadian influences on words like ‘corn” and ‘horn’. Except for the word ’self-esteem’ for some reason. I think that nasal, like the guidance counsellor from Heathers.
If Melbourne is Australia’s answer to SF, what would be the antipodean Emperor Norton?
Ambigulous @ 7
“May I quote a graffito from Fitzroy, 1971? “Piss off, trendies!””
Hmm, I think I might have known the people who did it. I was living in Fitzroy in the early 70s and found it a fascinating place with strong local history and a rich diversity (Masses at the local RC church were in a suite of languages). Lots of little pubs, the Champion was probably the most notorious and the one pub I didn’t set foot in. While not unexpected, it was still a shock to see it all upmarket and trendified in more recent years. Fitzroy and Collingwood were mostly working class/migrant in those (along with poor students) and I wonder what happened to all those people
I was in the US in 2002 mostly in upstate New York, staying with friends outside of Perry who took me around the area - most of which was settled in early 19th century so pretty much same age as Australia. I found it all fascinating and would love to go back for a longer time. I also got to Toronto which I loved too (It reminded me very much of Melbourne - I think they were built on rouhgly the same sort of imperial grid pattern). I had a brief stopover in LA most of which was in the execrable LAX which disillusioned me mightily about US public facilities. I would like to see more of California and I have a hankering for the further north - Oregon and Washington state where I have friends
Mercurius @ 5
“I’m gonna do some Boomer-baiting here: all the people I know who have a visceral dislike for things American are basically middle aged to mid-sixties. Coincidence?”
While I think generational generalisations are mostly shite (not making allowances for class, gender etc) I’ll bite. As young un in the 60s all things American seemed fabulous and we were encouraged to look to the US as a model of what things should be like. But then there was that nasty war in INdo-China that Uncle Sam was pursuing and that large numbers of us were being concsripted to go off and be cannon fodder for. Some of us also started looking at what else the US was up to (and still is) around the world. But there are heaps of USans who share a similar visceral dislike for such stuff too
I love visiting America - and I’ve been there a lot on both business and pleasure. New York is one of the wonders of the world. I could spend days just wondering around central park and visting the museums - the Met is phenomenal. I love the buzz of New York - you feel so incredibly alive wandering down fifth avenue or Times Square. Look around - and it strikes you that probably 50% of the people on the street are tourists as well! Walk around Melbourne and its all locals.
Boston is to NY as Melbourne is to Sydney. NY and Sydney are all brash, fast, new money - have cash? welcome aboard. Boston and Melbourne are establishment old money - what school? which suburb? have money - well you can come in, but it’s your grandkids we’ll accept.
“I’m gonna do some Boomer-baiting here: all the people I know who have a visceral dislike for things American are basically middle aged to mid-sixties. Coincidence?”
For an interrogation of anti-USianism (and so much more besides) in Sydney and elsewhere in the late-’60s to the early-’70s, I’ve got to recommend Frank Moorhouse’s ‘The Americans, Baby’.
Take your pick:
William Chidley
William Buckley
Carbonsink “The homelessness is pretty shocking though, and you can move from incredible wealth to desperate poverty within a few blocks.”
Have you been to Mumbai? Now that’s depressing. Kids literally living in garbage dumps right next to apart blocks with US$2m apartments for sale.
Thanks michael,
that graffito gave us pause for thought: were we unwelcome in a suburb with very many poor and migrant families and numbers of homeless alcoholics? Were the alleged graffito-writers actually closet trendies themselves? Mother Teresa’s group opened a centre in Fitzroy in the early 1970s; good to know that good old Aussie Fitzroy poverty rated up there with India.
Ambi - it would definitely have been early trendies of the artist variety, wanting the rent to stay low and wanting to be the gatekeepers of cool.
gatekeepers of cool? the idea is simply preposterous!
“If Melbourne is Australia’s answer to SF…”
Ah yes, but does Melbourne have an answer to ‘Survival Research Laboratories’?!
(On the other hand, I have to say that the photos I’ve seen of Australian “zombie stagger” parades in Sydney, are incredibly impressive.)
Also, what do all these references to “balls of string” mean?
[”Also, a tin (weird pause) teardrop.”]
Oh, and FYI, usage of the pissy adolescent “USian” is quite a handy way of identifying nincompoops and Canadians. “Xtan USians” would be even better! Please continue! As a reliable device for reflexive taxonomy, Marlin Perkins would surely have approved.
USian: that is to say, the US is not the only country in the Americas, no matter what some of it’s citizens may think. If it’s pissy and adolescent to be aware of that, then so be it. If you self-identify as ‘American’ then good, and I’m happy to go along with that, but when I’m trying to refer to a phenomenon related specifically to the US, then I don’t see a problem with ‘USian’. I mix in a lot of circles where referring to ‘America’ is insufficiently vague.
I wouldn’t use the term ‘Xtian’, though, under any circumstances.
JPZ, ‘balls of string’ here refers not to an unusually inventive slur on someone’s masculinity but rather to a strange Victorian (the Australian state, not the historical period) ad promoting Melbourne as a tourism destination. It features a young woman, in a kind of contemporary Alice in Wonderland getup and demeanour, rolling a giant ball of string through the alleys and galleries of Melbourne. Presumably so she won’t get lost. Who knows.
If they’d thought it through, they would have realised that a motif from the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur isn’t the best way to promote a city. There may well be a fearful monster at the heart of Melbourne, but is that really the message they wish to send?
The ad also has, for no apparent reason, a Joanna Newsom soundtrack. I hope they paid her a lot of money.
j-p-z,
balls of string - in a satiracal comedy show,The Chasers’ War on Everything - whom I’m sure you’ve read about on LP, the Chasers unravelled huge balls of string through the streets of Melbourne as part of a satire on tourism in Melbourne, I think. Other Lp-ers might be able to give more precise details.
Everyone,
as a card carrying Socialist you might expect me to be virulently anti-American . Not so. Sure, I despise Bush, the neocons, the RWDBs, American fundamentalists, gun culture,weird neo-imperialism, etc etc.I deplore the rampant capitalism, the gap between rich and poor, the dreadful privatisation of the health system, etc, etc. I don’t want to get into a rave about what I don’t like about America, but rather prefer putting down what I love about America.
1.Its democratic traditions (despite the fact it doesn’t have compulsory voting.)
2. Its massive intellectual achievement in practically every field of endeavour.
2. Its vibrant theatrical traditions - and I don’t just mean musicals, though there’s nothing wrong with them. Where would world theatre be without the likes of O’Neill, Miller, Tenessee Williams, Albee,etc etc. The list is endless.
3.Its film industry, when its at its very best.
4.The incalculable contribution American literature has made to the world.
5. Marvel Comics -well, some of them.
6.Its music - from jazz,to swing, to country, to folk,to rythm and blues, to rock, to rap. Those of you more into music than me could probably give more details.
7. Its inordinately fascinating history - not just the colonial/revolutionary period I specialise in, but all of it.
8. Its overwhelming natural beauty.
And much else.
Sure, there are lots of things that are ‘only in America’, but even these are macabrely fasscinating.
I’ve never been to the States, but I’d sure love to go for a year or two.
I’ve met lots of Americans over the years in Australia, black and white, men and women - and I’ve never met a bad one.
Blessed be to YouTube. For j_p_z’s edification, here’s the Chaser pisstake. The ad that it is taking the piss out of can be found under “New Ad for Victorian Tourism” on the right hand side.
PC, if they thought it through they’d be aware that fewer than 1% of Australians have ever heard of Theseus and the Minotaur. Cretans, anyone?
“Ah yes, but does Melbourne have an answer to ‘Survival Research Laboratories’?!”
Connex.
“As a reliable device for reflexive taxonomy, Marlin Perkins would surely have approved.”
Perkins is a taxonomic device? Who knew?
Nah. Much in the same way as more people seem to have seen the Chaser boys’ parody (not me, but then I am in the apparently very small minority that is irritated and bored by the Chaser boys) than have seen the original ad, this kind of stuff gets recycled endlessly in cartoons and movies that lots of people see, even if they don’t consciously remember it. For example, I give you Troy.
All I know about San Francisco, I have learnt from Dirty Harry movies.
Reading the comments of others on the disproportionate wealth distribution in the city of San Francisco, I must say I agree with the post by Howard C which sparked this quite bizarre topic.
I’m sure the Iranians are mightily relieved, the sexist (US)Americans saved them from oblieration.
I suspect that the place, date and vocabulary indicates that this graffito was not daubed by some horny-handed son/daughter of toil.
Rather, it was a product of the labyrinthine factionalisms of the lunar left.
At the time the Radical Action Movement (Maoists) imagined that they spoke for and understood the sensibility of the working class.
The hated “trendies” are identifiable as the New Left whom the RAM presented as turning their backs on the aspirations of the working classes.
The RAM hoped to commence their Long March to Revolution with this clarion call to expunge leather coat-wearing Mateus Rose-quaffing trendies from the very face of the earth.
Haven’t heard much from the Maoists these last 35 years. That’s one hell of a Long March!
(I except, of course, those doughty folk of the Last Super Power.)
Quite right PC: many would know the myth as a dread story without knowing the names. I must learn that naming names is peripheral to the guts of story-telling.
Katz: you could be right. The workers were not inclined to daub on walls.
cheers
“Haven’t heard much from the Maoists these last 35 years.”
I suspect most of them can now be found in the upper echelons of the public service and academia, on the boards of the ABC and Quadrant, or writing op-eds for the Murdoch media. Some are even given to penning revisionist histories, although for some reason rarely talking about their own erstwhile heartfelt views.
I don’t care what you say; I don’t like the freeways with thousands of trucks, I don’t like the slums, I don’t like all the talk about guns, I don’t like the difference between the rich and the poor, I don’t like the poor building standards with houses and shopping centers that are about to fall, I don’t like the run down infrastructure, I don’t like having to tip, I don’t like the food and I don’t like the trip.
But if I ever got stuck there, yes I’d give San Fransisco a try, there’s enough gum trees there to make life worthwhile.
In short I am old and grumpy and I would be happy if I never saw the place again.
Have you noticed they have taken down the Photo of Bush in the entrance hall of LA airport.
Maoists -> Quadrant?
Quadrant must have change a lot since I last read it.
Maoists -> Quadrant?
Sleeper agents
Steve At The Pub -
Zimbabwe could well be like the PRC in its ‘Mao’ phase. Maybe one day the now-stable one-party state Zimbabwe will look upon him the way the Chinese do Mao: the Great Man Who Went Nuts! Then they will no longer be Communist but Fascist.
.
Q. What’s the difference between Fascists and Communists?
A. Fascists have McDonald’s.
I can think of at least two people this description applies to. One is identified pretty clearly in Hal9000’s final sentence; I don’t think the other one would thank me for outing him. Bear in mind that Hal9000 was referring to a 35-year gap between the two allegiances.
Ah, I see Mr/Madam cat, proof again that politics is circular.
I spent last Saturday getting around Los Angeles by public transport!
Fascinating at an anthropological level and quite safe, but utterly confusing. I could never imagine using LA public transport if I had to get to a certain place by a particular time. Apparently its improved, but this would have to be off a very low base.
The number of ‘plastic cup people’ walking the streets is also certainly something to get used to.
SF certainly has the edge on LA in terms of city design and layout.
Charles, I think lives are circular.
Re gender: I am a Pavlova. *Considers new possibility for gravatar*
Hal9000
But those at “The Last Superpower” still like to go on and on about how they were the “only true revolutionaries” in the Melbourne anti-Vietnam-War movement. Yes, step forward the Monash student branch. Apparently they used to go on about it at the time too. Which must have made Moratorium planning meetings a tad tedious.
Melbourne Maoists: self-righteous, derivative, noisy, stalwart, unhinged, loudly militant, sloganeering, and uncomprehending of the reality of China. Just another strand of teenage fandom really.
The most honest statement I recall from any of them was circa 1978 when it seemed that Albert Langer must have broken with the CPA (Marxist-Leninist). He wrote that CPA stood for “Chinese Parrots of Australia”. Ah, how we laughed.
One thing I learnt when I was there last year (and yes, its a great town): the population decreased by a massive 15% after the tech bust in 2000/1.
I’ve only been to SF twice, for a total of about 10 days but I have to say that I love that city. Definitely one of my favourite places in the US.
Unfortunately, I’ve spent whole months in LA.
Terry: “I spent last Saturday getting around Los Angeles by public transport!”
Come on baby take a chance with us.
Come on baby take a chance with us,
Meet me in the back of the Blue Bus…
The Blue Bus
is caaalllling us…
LA public transport??
I love using public transport, you get to sit and observe, and sometimes meet interesting people ( for example a philosophy phd driving a bus). Well I was in LA on a train to Beverly Hills aiming to pick up drum sticks for my daughter. I now understand why women don’t like strange men trying to pick them up. He informed me it was my large hands he admired. I informed him I was married, he assured me it didn’t matter.
Liked the station, it’s decorated with old film canisters.
After the train came the bus, lined up to get on, in front was a negro man badly dressed as a women.
Very strange place.
“Maoists -> Quadrant?
Quadrant must have change a lot since I last read it.”
Once an extremist, always an extremist. Only the colours have been changed to protect the bank balance. It’s a pathology not a political attitude.
“When we think about liberty, independence, self-realisation, respect for diversity, we think in an American accent. My world would be unimaginable without the benign influence of the great American, liberal tradition.”
I’m still rolling on the floor. How many Gettysburg’s has Australia had?
If I went to America I’d probably visit SF. Memories of Tales of the City, cable cars, the Golden Gate bridge, great view, Chinatown, have an ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s in Haight-Ashbury. Have another for Magnolia Thunderpussy. Spend ages digging thru the book & music shops there too.
I’d avoid The Presidio. And the Transamerica Pyramid…is that possible? And not go during earthquake season.
And then go visit some email mates in California…and my step-mum in Colorado. Hear some jazz in New Orleans…& then sleep in some seedy hotel & motel rooms for a few mths, drink heaps of piss, write a book of poetry…& then make my way up to Chicago for a hockey game or two. Then I’d like to spend a few nights in a cottage w/ a log fire & a bowl of fruit. And hopefully my wife would enjoy doing most of the same stuff…but she just might convince me to cut out the seedy hotel/motel bit & opt for the over the border to Canada bit to see the rest of my family. She’s sensible.
Hillary lost partially because of sexism…& Obama won partially because he is half-black. Or so some say. A curious country.
Maybe QLD can vote in Anna Bligh next election & Aussies can elect Julia Gillard down the road as PM, followed by a full-blooded Aboriginal politician as PM from the United Democrat Alliance (hey, can’t a guy dream?). Now wouldn’t that put the Yanks to shame?
“Oh what a rush of ripe elan!
Languor on divans,
Dalliant and dainty.
But oh, the smell of burnt cocaine,
The dolor and decay,
It only makes me cranky.
O grave calamity,
Ditch of iniquity
And tears…
How I abhor this place!
Its sweet and bitter taste
Has left me wretched, retching
On all fours:
Los Angeles, I’m yours.”
– Colin Meloy, sensible Portland feller
Now there’s some quality rhymin’ for ya. You know, I keep *telling* people not to stay at the Chateau Marmont, but they never seem to listen…
… … …
FWIW, I can well appreciate the dismay some people here have expressed at the disturbing scope of the homeless situation in large US cities. You should realize, however, that historically speaking it’s a relatively recent phenomenon (well I guess it depends on your sense of historical reach, Five Points for instance was another kettle of fish entirely). For instance it didn’t really exist in the same calamitous manner in NYC when I was a kid in the 70s and early 80s, then it peaked catastrophically in NY ca. 1987-96, and has now settled into a lesser but still disturbingly routinized phenomenon. In places like LA (and SF too, at least last time I checked which was a while ago) it’s utter madness.
The history is quite complex, but it has to do with such things as the Reagan administration, urban vs. suburban electoral politics, the unprecedented spike caused simultaneously by the crack wars and the AIDS epidemic, the cultural hangover from the 60s, the public’s sheer exhaustion circa 1989-91, and a typically well-meaning but idiotic leftist crusade against state policies w/r/t public mental hospitals. One big problem (as I see it anyway) was the insidious combination of creeping onset and peculiar spikes that characterized its growth and made it difficult to analyze accurately; since it was somehow both chronic and acute in developing, it somehow became absorbed perceptually into the accepted nature of reality. Homeless activists in my opinion frequently aren’t helping (and I say this from a modicum of experience) because they have a tendency to frame the issue in a manner that is simultaneously inaccurate, unrealistic, and politically unpersuasive. I don’t mean the ones who do the actual F2F work, God love ‘em; I’m talking about the way this is discussed politically. The old game of ought versus is. Pick the subjunctive instead of the indicative, and you’ll lose it every time.
TimT @15:
Blind adherence to authority is, at least to me, immature. It’s something that children do, because it’s based on an assumption that something — or someone — is either right or wrong, with no grey in between. It is, of course, a very rare event that anything is that simple, but in a culture where people are taught not to think, such simplistic thought runs rampant. Americans do not ‘rally around a few national symbols’, they violently defend every national symbol, person, or notion, and have an outspoken expectation that you too will share the sentiment; to dare question the validity of this blind patriotism is to risk marginalisation to a degree that I never saw in Australia. Unlike countries where making fun of the government is a valid pastime, the gentlest of criticism of the American government was the fastest way to becoming a social leper.
I am not claiming that nowhere else in the world is there a slavish obedience to an ideological code (either spoken or unspoken). What I am saying is that despite repeated claims of a ‘melting pot’, for a certain period America followed a single ideological code of nationalism, with only a few (rare, very lonely, and possibly unemployed) dissenters. One quickly learnt any criticism or other dangerous sorts of intellectual diversity was to be neither seen or heard.
My reference to clapping during the State of the Union address was meant to indicate the presence of blind conformity, not prove it. How Americans exude said conformity is very difficulty to prove, especially in the comments section of a blog. I’m not trying to be patronising, nor am I trying to (as Katz perhaps alluded) indicate that America has not contributed anything to Australia or the world. I wouldn’t have resided in America for the past 15 years if that was not the case. But this country is, to use the words of a fellow American, ‘in a big fucking mess’. Americans have spent the past 30 years doing little more than saluting the flag and shopping — in unison, of course –, much to our detriment. All those so-called ‘liberal traditions’ have disintegrated over the last few decades, and the America of 2002 exhibited few of the characteristics that gave it such potential in 1776.
As I mentioned in my original post, however, lately Americans have shown that they are more than a 20%-off coupon at Macy*s. The passion present right now for ‘change’ (for want of a better word) is astounding, refreshing, and simply a delight to be around. The revolutionary genes supposedly present in national conscience, which lay dormant for years and years, have (hopefully) begun to wake up. Keeping in mind the fact that there are some of the most powerful idiots in the world presently running this country, I am cautiously optimistic.
Since I’ve spent the last four paragraphs attempting not to be patronising (although not necessarily succeeding), I’m going to go right ahead and patronise: visiting America for a quick holiday in LA and NYC is not the same as living here. No amount of book-reading and Bill of Rights-analysing can ever make up for the actual experience of living here. There is a difference between America the concept and Americans the people, and the distinction can never be made in any book or on any holiday brochure. I know lots and lots of really important old white men wrote some big fancy books about liberalism and independence in the US in the 1700s. That doesn’t make it fact.
Gettysburgs what?
Townships — Zero. No one named Getty sufficiently famous, I guess.
Speeches — Zero. Name one Australian leader or spokesperson who has encapsulated the Australian mission in the world (whatever that may be) in fewer than 300 words.
Battles — Zero. Australia never enshrined slavery in its constitution. Australia has never faced the issue of whether to go to war to prevent a part of Australia wishing to cease to be a part of Australia.
Australia has never had to face the challenge of whether and how to combat an attempt to dissolve the Commonwealth by force of arms. Australians have never been invited to pay the extreme sacrifice in a civil war.
Australia has got lucky because the country has never faced this ultimate challenge.
Sometimes folks mistake this luck as a proof of virtue.
The Battle of Gettysburg preserved the American Union and paved the way for the acceptance of ex-slaves as equal citizens. If you don’t believe me, take a look at 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution.
I’m very glad you put those lyrics on here, jpz. The Decemberists are magnificent, and that would have to be one of my favourite songs.
Heather
You mention the patriotic clap trap, I will add to my list of don’t likes.
I don’t like the beggars on corners, their life and limbs having been destroyed by war.
In John Buttons book there is a passage where he relates a conversation with a US senator. The senator’s view was that America was in terminal decline, and that conversation must have been had over 20 years ago. Things have got a lot worse since then.
I really think the difference is summed up in the construction of the shopping centers. Tap on one one of those solid looking pillars. Sound a bit hollow? Pine frame with rendered plywood, it will burn down in minutes, last 30 years max ( if you have been there 15 years I’m sure you have seen them built). In Australia it’s done with tilt slabs, they will be standing in 100 years. In Europe there built to last even longer.
The new USA is one unmitigated short term mess and the stuff their parents built in the 50s and 60s needs money spent on it.
On the battle of Gettysburg, it’s worth noting that the vast majority of Confederate soldiery - who fought with as much spectacular bravery as their enemies - were not themselves slave-owners. To my mind that says a lot about the American soul. People who are not themselves beneficiaries of the system nonetheless will put their lives on the line to defend the privileges of the elite in the vain hope they or their children may one day get to join the club. Much the same system prevailed in the Roman Empire, although with rather more rationality since citizenship was a privilege eventually afforded legionaries if they survived decades of service.
Another stray thought: the American reverence for the powers of the presidency hails from pre-Glorious Revolution conceptions of the monarchy. By the time of the American revolution, the British monarch had already become a figurehead. The colonists, having never been represented in Parliament, seem not to have realised the caravan had already moved on. Or perhaps they were nostalgic for the Stuarts, so many of them having been oppressed by the Cromwell dictatorship. At any event, they seem to have remained stuck in constitutional infantilism, tempered only by their clever invention of constitutional separation of powers. Even this looks to be on its last legs, with a supine Congress and a stacked Supreme Court.
Charles @62: I’m not so sure about terminal decline. I think in order to return to any sort of normality, it’ll take years and years of dedicated change (and a few dead/retiring Supreme Court justices), and although I will admit to some doubt about the level of dedication Americans would actually have to have in order for this occur, I’m still prepared to have a little bit of hope. Public transport no longer constitutes communism, farmers markets and CSA’s are popping up everywhere, and Bill O’Reilly is finally being recognised as a complete and utter moron. (As a disclaimer, the DC metro area where I currently reside does tend to be a little more thoughtful than many of the states, but even in some of the more rural areas of Virginia and West Virginia, people appear to be waking up.) If we can get our shit together, I think we can make it. It’s a pretty big if, but the existence of possibility alone is cause for celebration.
Your comparison to building construction is a good one and is further evidenced in those bloody McMansions and units popping up all over Brisbane. For a time I lived in one of those estates (the ones with lines of identical little townhouses) on Brisbane’s northside, on land that had previously been a pig farm. Hastily thrown together, after less than five years the house was falling apart at the seams (literally). And despite being built in the early 2000s, it was utterly lacking in any insulation, meaning it was 32C throughout summer and 4C in winter. Further proof that the Howard years led to the little more than a spread of the ‘buy cheap now, pay forever’ attitude, a notion I am quite sure was copyrighted by right-wing America (with a Mickey Mouse copyright, natch). The Americanisation of Australia is perhaps the most depressing legacy of Howard’s reign.
That’s a fair definition of aspirationalism that applies to any socio-economic system.
Howard’s aspirationals made the same bargain. This calculus doesn’t only reside in the american soul.
Yes. Many contemporary American accounts of the events leading to the Declaration of Independence asserted a central role to George III. This view of British governance was quite out of date. And it drove a conspiratorial view of history that is still strong in US political discourse. I guess this is difficult to avoid when their foundational document, the Declaration of Independence, is mostly concerned with conspiracy. The Stuarts represented to Puritan Americans all that was evil about monarchy. Revolutionary-era New England intellectuals tended to view Oliver Cromwell as a hero.
There was some talk of crowning George Washington as a king. It came to nothing.
Congresses are changed regularly. Supreme Court Justices can linger for a long time. On the other hand, they are known for biting the hand that fed them.
My biggest US constitutional concern has been discussed before on LP, notably beginning here.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/01/10/the-nature-of-the-social-contract-involved-in-military-service/#comment-427339
Big expanses of blue water, located on the pacific ocean, iconic bridge, narrow streets, hilly terrain, huge gay population and gay pride marches, fairly sunny skies, jeez, Melbourne just isn’t the Oz city that comes to mind.
yeah, jo, but Melb folk just hate to mention S**n*y
I’m gonna do some Boomer-baiting here: all the people I know who have a visceral dislike for things American are basically middle aged to mid-sixties. Coincidence?
No coincidence. But certainly bullsh*t.
Well thanks Heather, for not patronising me - mostly. I know it’s obviously difficult to offer conclusive evidence in a blog comment for an argument, but something other than general statements about ‘blind conformity’ would be worthwhile. One or two anecdotes, at least.
It’s easy, after all, to make generalisations about the country you live in and conclude that those who disagree with you are blind conformists. Hell, there are newspapers in Australia who basically churn out variations of this argument day after day after day. That doesn’t make it right. In the absence of some form of supporting evidence, after all, blanket statements about large nations become little more than bland cliches.
Further to this, an obvious example that came to my mind was Australian columnist Adele Horin, who is repeatedly contrasting Australian unsophistication with European sophistication. Such is her lack of originality, that the same stylistic tics will manifest themselves again and again in her writing:
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Adele Horin, 2004:
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Adele Horin, 2006: