Some versions of patriotism come close to the tribal, which we all want to surpass, and some don't.
From Todd Gitlin
Collectively, we are in thrall to media - because they deliver to us many of the psychic goods we crave, and we know no other way to live.
To win power anywhere you have to convince people that you can do something for them.
So every day I'm mindful as I watch the Bush crowd extend their sway into policies of every imaginable variety, and over almost every square foot of earth, that the control of the American state is a matter of urgency.
The moguls are driven by their respective desires for profit - period.
Like Americans, people outside America want fun, want an emotional compensation for the utilitarianism and calculation that mark the rest of their lives.
So American culture is itself a hybrid and lends itself to use in other people's hybrids.
The manufacture of desire isn't at the heart - if it isn't absurd to speak of a heart - of the media torrent. Chronic dissatisfaction is at the heart of the matter.
As I write at the end, if we step back and face the enormity of the torrent, then we have taken the first step to imagining what we might want to do about it.
Sure, I've often been misrepresented - anyone frequently quoted has this experience.
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